{"id":2501,"date":"2023-06-01T20:11:42","date_gmt":"2023-06-01T19:11:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/leaders-club\/?post_type=article&p=2501"},"modified":"2023-06-01T20:11:43","modified_gmt":"2023-06-01T19:11:43","slug":"how-can-you-help-female-staff-to-thrive-in-your-teams","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/leaders-club\/articles\/how-can-you-help-female-staff-to-thrive-in-your-teams\/","title":{"rendered":"How Can you Help Female Staff to Thrive in your Teams?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n 1 Jun 2023 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

How Can you Help Female Staff to Thrive in your Teams?<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Category<\/div>\n Leadership & Culture<\/a> <\/div>\n
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https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/leaders-club\/articles\/how-can-you-help-female-staff-to-thrive-in-your-teams\/<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n\n\n\n\n
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The Leaders Performance Institute brings you a series of thinking points and initiatives from the recent Women\u2019s High Performance Sport Community Group calls, where the focus was on how being intentional in your environmental design can enable women to flourish.<\/p>\n \n \n \n

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By Rachel Woodland<\/h6>\n
In our first two Women\u2019s High Performance Sport Community Group calls, we explored environmental factors that enable women \u2013 practitioners and athletes \u2013 to flourish within a sports organisation.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h6>\n

To begin each call, we\u2019ve asked several individuals from a range of sports, including Major League Baseball, Australian rules football, as well as several Olympic sports in the United Kingdom, to share how they have helped their female staff to thrive.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Leaders Performance Institute has picked out a series of thinking points and initiatives \u2013 some from beyond the realms of sport \u2013 highlighted during the two calls.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Focus on recruitment<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

People are integral to an environment. We know women are less like to apply for roles<\/a><\/span>. Thus, we must take time to encourage talented and capable women through our doors. Some methods of reducing the barriers to women applying for roles in high performance include deliberately not expecting them to have experience playing the sport, being mindful of the wording of the job description, tailoring the interview experience itself, and facilitating job shares. However, we must then consider what support will be needed to enable female staff members to thrive once in situ. This includes making sure there\u2019s the capacity to provide the necessary training to compensate for any experience gaps.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Encourage a sense of belonging<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s many layers to \u2018belonging\u2019, and we were reminded of the <\/span>hormonal soup<\/span><\/a> described by Owen Eastwood in his book <\/span>Belonging<\/span><\/i>, as well as the perceived heightened importance of this in women\u2019s sport. Across the calls we discussed a handful of specific ideas. Firstly, removing cliques. Where individuals have a genuine, mutual interest in one another, there\u2019ll be connection and appreciation of everyone\u2019s individuality. With such thinking in mind, the Brisbane Lions\u2019 women\u2019s team, for example, aim for every player to enter and leave the playing group having not wavered from being their one true self. The collective also works purposefully to ensure that every player knows their value to the team. All of this can be enhanced by helping others be true to themselves, as explained in the next consideration.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Know who you are beyond your role<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From a performance lifestyle perspective, this can come back to creating space for athletes to explore, embrace, celebrate, and share their identity beyond being an athlete. We can help our staff and athletes bring their whole selves to work, the \u2018bells and whistles\u2019 versions of themselves, and help them to achieve their biggest dreams.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Get women to the table and let them support others once they\u2019re there<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One group described the process of bringing more women to the table of the decision makers as a journey. They broke it into six steps for an individual woman:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Step 1:<\/span><\/b> Find a route to the table; \u2018get in the door\u2019.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Step 2:<\/span><\/b> Build up the courage to speak at the table.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Step 3:<\/span><\/b> Build a community of support through conversations with those at the table, and by inviting others to the table.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Step 4:<\/span><\/b> Take on a leadership role, volunteer to be responsible when opportunities arise.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Step 5:<\/span><\/b> Dare to lead the group to places they haven\u2019t been before. This might include adding new roles at the table, or the discussion of new topics.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Step 6:<\/span><\/b> Encourage those at the table to think in new ways that ensures the topics and challenges and, therefore, work that needs doing, is done by everyone at the table, not just you.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Make sure everyone helps to create the environment<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Where many won\u2019t be at the table, it\u2019s important to enable women to have a voice, asking for their opinions and experiences, not merely assuming they will come. We can also provide space for people to talk; and listening and responding to what we hear will generate additional buy-in. We should challenge ourselves to also consider how we still enable athletes to learn life skills when we\u2019re removing some of the challenges that taught lessons as women\u2019s sport progresses.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Have the difficult conversations<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If we\u2019re asking for and creating spaces for voices, we need to make hard conversations easy to start. Organisations are striving to be fearless about hard conversations, which normalises being bold and starting a conversation. Beyond having a conversation, there is now an expectation about the level of support needed once a conversation has been had. This means that people in these organisations a) have allies and it\u2019s not only women bringing contributions to the table; and b) can have open conversations that focus on what\u2019s not been done rather than barriers; breaking big challenges down to what they can do next. Ultimately, we can see that progress is being made when these types of conversation are started by allies for us, potentially before we\u2019ve even recognised a need for them ourselves.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Help people through the change<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Potentially the point that has resonated most with the Leaders Performance Institute in recent weeks is the need to ensure change happens. When we are having difficult conversations, for example, we need to educate those involved on the challenges brought forward so that they can be fully understood. We shouldn\u2019t expect those who haven\u2019t experienced something to understand the impact and gravitas the first time. There has been consensus in the calls that further educational resources, socialising, and normalising are needed, especially around female health. This needs to be for staff, including coaches, as well as athletes.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Furthermore, understanding will support the pursuit of justice, which gives strong foundations to equity over equality, and in theory sustainable change.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Know what still needs to change<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At the same time as the above, we need to map and continuously challenge ourselves to identify where changes are still needed. If that\u2019s where there isn\u2019t diversity in a specific job role, it\u2019s understanding why there\u2019s a lack of diversity in the first place. We need to ask ourselves \u2018do we show people what\u2019s possible? Is it how we\u2019re recruiting? Is it how we\u2019re developing?\u2019 as a method of understanding how to best implement further development.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n \n \n <\/div>\n

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