In this episode of Carnegie Conversations, Tanya Arnold looks at why women remain under-represented in coaching and why the answer isn’t simply “more programmes.” With Leanne Norman (Director of the Women in Sport Research and Innovation Hub), Annette Stride (Director of Centre for Social Justice in Sport and Society), and Vicky Huyton (Female Coaching Network), the discussion unpacks the stubborn numbers and the tougher truth behind them: many women who do enter coaching report poor experiences, from exclusion and discrimination to bullying and unsafe cultures.

The guests argue the focus must shift from fixing women to fixing the system... pay gaps, costly CPD, informal recruitment networks, and job designs built around the “unencumbered worker.” They also challenge the idea that women should only coach in women’s sport, pointing to the National Football League as an example of how deliberate intervention can normalise women in elite roles.

Listen now to learn how we can begin to reimagining coaching culture!

Hello and welcome to Carnegie Conversations where we'll be exploring the science of performance. We're here at the Carnegie School of Sport at Leeds Beckett University where they do some incredible work with elite athletes, coaches and governing bodies. On these podcasts we'll be talking about some of what they do. We're here in our makeshift studio in the Strength and Conditioning Suite where the likes of Keely Hodgkinson, Josh Warrington and Max Bergin to name but a few have been put.

cases.

this episode, we're going to be discussing the Women in Coaching Task Force in the company of Leanne Norman, the director of the Centre for Social Justice in Sport and Society, Annette Stride, theme leader at the centre, and Vicki Highton, founder of the Female Coaching Network and a coaching consultant and mentor. Let's start with you, Leanne. Why do we need this task force?

are two reasons. Firstly, numbers. So we know that the coaching profession is hugely male dominated. It's a real stubborn issue. It hasn't gone anywhere. The numbers are very sticky. They kind of hang around at that kind of, well, when we're looking at high performance, we're looking at that 11%. It's a little bit better when we go further down the pathway. But the numbers aren't changing much. So it's that under-representation of women.

in terms of numbers is the first issue. So that's why we need the task force to shift some of those numbers, that representation. But for me, largely it's about the stories and the experiences of women. Yes, the numbers are low, but then the women in the system aren't reporting having a fantastic time either. And that for me worries me more. So when you hear the stories of being bullied, discriminated against, left out of opportunities, not progressed, not valued.

they worry me more. And so the task force exists for those two reasons. Yes, to shift representation, but to really get to the heart of why those issues are not shifting and why they're so stubborn. And so it's those two reasons really.

We've had an amazing summer of sport for women. Why do you think that's not leaving a legacy of coaching? Because we've seen elite coaches in the cricket, in the rugby union, and of course Serena Vigman in football. But that doesn't appear to be creating a legacy.

Yeah, I think the examples you're giving are almost the exception to the rule as opposed to the norm and it's great what we are seeing. However, I think for me, it's about taking that wider societal piece and having a look at what people's perceptions, expectations and assumptions are about women and girls in sport, whether that's as coaches, as participants, as fans. One of the things I would always go back to is that

girls learn from a young age that sport isn't for them. So we've seen lots of research out there which is about the drop-off rate. know, as girls enter those teenage years there are a number of factors that sort of intersect to impact upon their, I guess, belief that they belong in sport. So periods, wearing bras, boys, know, bodies changing and lack of self-confidence.

is leading to that dropout rate. However, we need to go back further than that because that dropout rate doesn't happen overnight. So research by Women in Sport a few years ago looked at girls in the primary school years. And so a lot of stereotypes and assumptions about how girls should behave occurs there. So girls are seen as princesses and worriers, fragile, clumsy, which are kind of labels that are the very...

antithesis really of what it means to be sporty. You know these are labels like you know warriors, competitive, strong, agile, capable. So girls you know in those primary school years are really learning that sport is not a space for them. Those are carried through into the teenage years. We see girls dropping out as soon as they can outside of sport. They then don't have a healthy relationship with sport into those adult years.

And of course, if you're not enjoying sport, the chances are you're not going to enter into careers in sport. So for me, it's taking a broader, I guess, a broader view of how women and girls are considered in society, considered capable in certain careers, and that's taken then into the sporting domain.

So Vicki, what are some of the stories that you've been hearing from female coaches about the experiences they've been having?

Where to start really? I'm very lucky to know many coaches from all over the world and many different sports. And to be honest, 99 % of the stories are very similar. So it's everything from the pathway for coaching as a career is very difficult anyway, but it's even harder for women. When you look at sports like football, American football, where as a former male athlete,

You've had that high profile, you've been in arenas with thousands of people and you've got a lot of resources, financial resources. It's a lot easier then to take the risk to become a coach. Whereas traditionally female athletes in most sports don't really have that financial resource to then say, right, I'm going to retire from competing and then go into coaching. So that's always difficult. And then you've got some really horrible stories, you know, in the dark side of sport.

You know, there's some abuse cases, sexual abuse cases, physical abuse, emotional abuse. And I think sports are struggling to deal with that. Obviously you don't want to go into a career of coaching if you've had a pretty horrendous time as an athlete. And then there's also the stories of not being treated the same. The pathways are more difficult. there is, you know, as...

women in many different careers experience those barriers and abuse cases, et cetera. It does also happen in sport. I think, unfortunately, there's just some real negative aspects that sometimes because it can be such a risk to become a coach as a career, sometimes it's, is it really worth that risk to take that forward? I won't be too negative about the podcast, but yeah, there are some not nice stories involved with being a female coach.

Why does it matter? Why does it matter how many female coaches there are?

Well, I think that picks up on what Vicky just said in terms of that dark side of sport. If you have too many of one group, in this case, if you have a very male dominated profession, you are opening yourself up to that risk of greater harm, maltreatment and abuse. So, I mean, that's an extreme. And so women in that space, there's a power, a greater power balance and there's reducing that.

risk as well. So I think in terms of we're looking at from an athlete or participant focus, that's important. We talked about it a lot actually through the research, really important that when we have people stepping onto the court or the poolside or the pitch or the track, they see people that look like themselves and our athlete base is more diverse than it's ever been before, but they're not coached by people that represent them.

And so that incident, like Annette was talking about that sense of belonging and connection that isn't felt straight away because you're stepping onto that, you know, onto that, into that arena with somebody who can't necessarily relate to you. So it's also the, so we are thinking about it in terms of connecting with, with the participant, with the athlete and as well, I know we're very athlete centered and there's that language in sport, but again, it's something we talk about as a lot as a team. Is it not just enough to be.

coach-centred as well in that, where's the coach in that? And the lines are saying that it's not okay to treat our coaches in the way that we do, that it's not okay for women to experience coaching often in the way that they do. So how can we make this profession better for all of our coaches, but particularly those who are most disproportionately affected by it? So I think it's important as well to give coaches the choice and opportunity if they wish.

to be in the profession to progress as well. So it's the moral, it's the business case as well, why would you not want more women in? We can see it in other professions and sectors where the impact of having that diversity and certainly through our research, when we have more women on boards particularly, that culture, that parity, feeds down, drips down through the sport and the organisation, we see a better, more inclusive culture through the governing body, through the sport.

So it's a win-win for everybody really.

I've doubles advocate for a moment in that, you know, what we are seeing, particularly in this country with the Lionesses say, you know, is in a relatively short space of time, you know, they have grown magnificently, the Red Roses similarly, but they're even behind the football, you take rugby league, you're behind that cricket. They're all quite young, it feels, as elite sports. So that maybe there's a generational thing that the Lionesses we have now, the Red Roses, that they will go into coaching.

that these young girls have those as role models. But that's quite recent, isn't it? So maybe we are at the beginning of the change.

I think so, but again I'm hesitating because you know women's football in this country has been going on for a number of years and we've had some high profile women footballers that have represented the squad.

in the way I think that's happened in the last five years.

Yeah but I suppose I'm thinking now of some of the the women that we see in commentating why are they not in coaching so the Farrah Williams, Aluco, Anita Asante, know

I nearly cried.

The biggest one actually is Lucy Ward who was in that.

Yeah, and it's come out.

So, you know, they seem to be going into media as opposed to coaching, whereas I think it goes back to something that you were saying, Vicky, for the men, there just seems to be more options post a playing career in terms of where you can go.

Is it not though that, you if you look at men's football, there are that many more leagues, therefore there are that many more jobs. Again, the women's game, it's a smaller game, therefore there are fewer jobs. And they've got to then go through the stages to get to those jobs. That we're just at the beginning?

I was just going to say, why are we pigeonholing women coaches have to go into women's sport? I'm going to just to give an example, the NFL, American football, I've seen America, it's only really professional for men, especially at that level. So there are no retiring high profile female football players, American football players. And yet the NFL have been really proactive in the last probably 10 years to try and get more female coaches and staff into the league. And ever since

Just to your point, there's loads of opportunities if you also open the door for the men's side of the...

We see sport though, isn't it? We see it as women's sport, men's sport. We do a lot of work in football and you hear the language of course of cross football, of men's football, women's football. And of course like Annette was saying about the ideas we have of women's capabilities as leaders, as players still, you you still get the comments, well you've only played women's football or women's sport. I was speaking to a woman who's won the World Cup in her sport, she's captain, not in football.

captain the team, won the World Cup. She can't get a job. She couldn't get a job at the time we were talking because the response from recruiters was, we've just played women's sport. And so while we still see things in that way, that's limiting. You've almost got half the field of opportunities then.

Do you actually put that down to a lot of the language around football? We're so football dominated in this country and that seems to be a much more aggressive arena to me than some of the other sports where you might get that breakthrough somewhere down the line.

Yeah, you do. I I'm thinking of like athletics. You don't hear necessarily that divide as much. You do hear it, of course, in more team sports. I would say in football, again, like I said, we do a lot of in football, but I'd say they've got healthier numbers of women coaches, particularly at the lower levels, of course, and they're on that journey. I would say, you know, I often hear from male coaches even, it's a good time to be a woman coach in football because there are a lot of opportunities. There are a lot of...

programs and initiatives to get women in football coaching and through. So there's that support. But I think it's a team sport thing, you know, when you have the women's teams and the men's teams, you know, even rugby, you've got that clear divide.

Even in individual sports, you know, if there's a woman coaching a male athlete, it's almost like that has to be spotlighted. So I'm thinking of Andy Murray and Moresmo. I'm thinking of Adam Peaty. Yeah. And it's almost like, you know, this is different. Yeah. Instead of going, this is different and it's great because look how successful these male athletes are being. It just ends up, this is different. You know, so it's not.

Yeah, it's not rewarded or recognised, I don't think, to the same extent.

I do think that there's a really good point about that. There's a big difference between team sports and individual sports. Individual sports, usually the athlete picks their personal coach. So you do actually see more female coaches at the higher end coaching male athletes because it's the athlete that's had a choice. potentially individual male athletes don't stereotype as much. They see a coach that can get them to where they want to go. They're going to choose them.

Yeah.

For me, one of the biggest problems is when it comes to recruitment. So team sports, you tend to have interviews, job processes, that kind of thing. Or even the team owners or the organization of the team already know who they want to pick as a head coach. So there's a lot more barriers in the team sports than there is individual because you've got a different setup for those two.

It's the tap on the shoulder, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. there you have the ideas and the assumptions about women's capabilities to lead. Yeah. And back to that idea of men's sport, women's sport as well. That means that you've got the pitch or whatever it is, is twice the size for men. You've got then same football men coming up through the academies. We've spoken to a lot of clubs in various sports and they say, you know, we want

We want coaches with experience and so instantly, of course women then have less experience often because they haven't been through that system, not because through choice or capability, but literally the field is half the size in terms of opportunity.

Do we also need to change the media? sit here as a journalist. work with Serena Regman occasionally. Would you like to manage the men's team? As though that should be her ambition. The next step up is to go and run a men's team. She doesn't want to. Why should she? She's very successful. think you're very good living, don't you? But if she did and it didn't go well...

It would be about her being a woman, wouldn't it be? It wouldn't be the tactics, wouldn't be... In the same way that if I make a mistake when I'm doing my job, I've made a mistake because I'm a woman, my male equivalent has just made a mistake. But that is the language that, as the public, maybe as the media, we still have. Is it actually a society shift we need to be looking at?

Yeah, I mean, think that's what I was sort of talking about right at the start. It is about societal attitudes, about women's capabilities, what jobs they should and shouldn't be doing, what levels they can get to. It's about how men and, you know, it's about societal expectations, about how men and women should behave differently. Yeah, and I think going back to something that you said earlier, Leanne, it's about that.

informal networking. So when job opportunities come up, how do you get to hear about those posts? And because there's more men in that coaching domain, those male networks exist. And so those men tends to get to hear about those opportunities a little bit more quickly or in a better position to apply for those posts. There's not always transparency about what opportunities are available out there. Yeah, so I...

Yeah, I think I agree. It's a societal issue and going back to something that you were saying earlier about, you know, there's more participants in men's football and leagues and so on. But then that also comes down to the societal piece about what sports are valued, what sports have money pumped into them, where sponsors are putting their money. So, you know, if there's more money in men's sports, then there's going to be more jobs in men's sports.

coaching roles in men's sports. you know, that for me is part of the shift that we need just to try and change people's views about what men and women are capable of doing.

I think the shift that we've talked a lot about through the task force as well, the work that we're doing is we need that investment in sport and we need it in coaching particularly. And that is also part of the problem. And what we're trying to do through the task force got kind of this saying going, it's not just representation, it's redesign as well. So if you don't have those formal structures of employment and the employment laws, the contracts in place, the informality, the casual nature that is mostly

coaching contracts, that precarity in those gaps, there you breed gatekeeping and informal networks because that's in the absence of those contracts and that's where you get in the tapping on the shoulder and of course then you shortcut to the assumptions you make. And so without those structures and those protections in place,

they are disproportionately affecting women and so that's part of the motivation of the task force as well is yes we want to raise the flag for representation we do need more women absolutely you need to see women in the system but we we talk about all the time you're effectively putting women into a lion's den at the moment because it is not safe so how do we redesign the system too

I was going to say that if you are the first, there's so much spotlight, so much pressure on you when you actually just want to do your job, but you know, any of us, you just want to do your job. Because there's so few and you're talking about, you know, the opportunities that the NFL have given. Do you almost need, you know, 10, 20 women to be given an opportunity in men's sport at the same time so that there's not, that's the one.

Yeah, yeah, I remember someone saying to me a while ago, might be you Leanne even, if you're a woman, you fail not just for yourself, you fail for all women. If you're a man or a male coach, you fail for yourself. And I think this is, it is that extra pressure on your shoulders. Can you imagine the first woman to be a Premier League head coach? Yeah, exactly. But I think for me, where what really needs to change, particularly from a media point of view and

Well, we've seen it with the refereeing.

you know, whenever there's a female head coach, the narrative is always about there's a lack of. And for me, this is about the strength of. So we'll stick with football for now, give an example. Across all women's international football, roughly, it's been between 15 and 20 % of teams have had a female head coach. In the last 25 years, all international competitions, so the Olympics, the World Cup, the Europeans, the Africans, et cetera,

there's only been two teams have won the championship with a male coach. So if you're a betting person, who are you gonna put your money on? A team with a female head coach or a team with a male head coach? And you never see that, know, the women's Euros, the headlines where there's so few women, the Rugby World Cup, there's only three female head coaches and no one's actually saying, well actually, those three female head coaches, I'm gonna put a tenner on them because statistically, you know, they're the ones that are gonna win.

But if you can really look at the stats and the statistics and how good that woman has to be to be in that position, that's what I think needs to change. And I think the media need to kind of help out with that as well.

Do you think as well, I was chatting to Sarah Hunter, who was part of the Red Roses, she was the defence coach at an event the other day. She was saying that I asked, do you have the ambition to be the head coach? And one of the problems is actually when you get to that head coach's role, you're dealing with a lot of other stuff and you're not necessarily doing what she loves doing, which is working with the players. Then actually we need to stop saying you've got to be the boss, you've got to be the head one. Actually, the assistant coach is probably the one.

doing the coaching. And at the moment she was really happy doing that and she wasn't that fast yet. That wasn't an ambition because she wants to work with the players.

Yeah, we speak to hundreds and hundreds of women coaches and Vicky might contrast me here. Well, I don't often hear women say, I want to be the next Rena Vigman. It's the sentiment, I want to be the best coach they can be. And they want to have choice in that. And, you know, the example of Sarah, she wants to be the best coach. And that's, again, I think a mission of the task force is really important that we redesign the system so that coaches do have that choice.

I would say there's little choice and even less for women. But I think there's something as well as around equipping all of our coaches. Because the game has changed so much in terms of many sports, so women's football, I remember someone saying it works in football, we're driving the car too fast for the changes that we can make. It is growing so exponentially. But we're still far behind in the infrastructure.

and the way that we educate our coaches, men and women in that space. So as a head coach, yes, you do have to deal with more than the tech and the tech side. It is with agents, it's with sponsors, it's the boardroom, managing up, managing down across all of that. And that needs to evolve as well to equip all of our coaches to work in that space. But you're absolutely right. The hours on the grass is what coaches love. And that's what keeps coaches, particularly women,

coaching. I remember one coach saying to me, it's like a drug. I can't walk away despite all the other rubbish I have to pull up with. And so wouldn't it be so lovely that if we could take those buffers and everything off around the side, all of that rubbish around the side that this coach describes so that coaches could focus on the hours on the grass, but feel equipped to deal with the other side because women's, like for example, women's football is changing. You are having agents turning up at under 16 games. That's how it is now.

So we need to support our coaches to feel okay to work in those spaces. But I think ultimately for me it's choice. If I want to be a vegan, there's a pathway for me and I'm nurtured through that. But if I'm happy coaching at this level or that level, I have a choice and I'm paid and rewarded to do so.

Does that resonate with what you hear?

Yeah, it does definitely. And it's something I've actually been thinking about quite a lot recently is if we're not careful, the speed that women's sport is going and the attention on it, we're actually going to create a bigger gap for male and female coaches. So I'll give you an example. There's a big trend at the moment of head coaches having their own coach. So a big proponent of that is somebody called Cody Royal from Australia and lives in Canada. And he coaches head coaches.

And the reason there's such a need for that, like Leanne said, is nowadays head coaches of professional teams have to coach up to the owners and the executive teams, sideways to all their own performance staff and then down towards the players. And there's no coach education that equips you to do that. Then you've all got the media to deal with, et cetera, et cetera. So a lot of male coaches are now seeking out coaches themselves because even the male coaches have the financial resources to pay for that.

or the teams can pay for that as well. The wages from a female coach is often on that good. So to then say to a female coach, have to pay for your own coach, it's just not possible. So therefore we're kind of setting women up to fail because yes, they're damn good at what they do. They're very good at coaching the sport, but because all of a sudden women's sports going through the roof, there's no one there to support that coach.

to do all the extra bits that you've got to do in modern day coaching. So we've got to be really careful about that.

There's two things that spring out when you're talking there that come up through our task force findings. Actually two things, there's CPD and pay. CPD we're finding that, I mean, there are issues for all coaches in that in terms of coaches routinely having to pay for the CPD themselves, continued professional development. So coaches are routinely paying for that themselves. So instantly, like Vicky said, if you can pay for it, you can access it. So you're already creating inequities in that way.

CPD.

plus the gender dimension. But in terms of pay, again, what we're finding in the task force is that men are more likely to be paid for their coaching and expenses. Women are largely only paid their expenses. So you're expecting, on average, was men are paid approximately around a thousand pounds a month for their coaching. This was on average. Women between 100 and 300 pounds. I mean, it's just not viable. It's not a viable profession.

in its current form. So, and we often hear, we work across sports and often the ideas that women don't want to go into coaching, right? You know, they're not engaged, not motivated. How do I get women to want to come into this? I'd really like to flip it and just say, do you know what? If I had to go into a profession where I'm not likely to be paid much, if at all, I'm more likely to be bullied, harassed, discriminated against. All of these factors, I'd say it's a pretty...

rational decision not to go into that profession. And so that's that mindset shift again that we want through the task force.

There's a coach I'm in conversation with who she's a head coach of a team in one of the fastest growing leagues in I'll say Europe rather than the country. Who has admitted she needs support. She wants a coach to help her coach. So in a similar way, I don't know if you saw Emma Hayes admitted when she won Olympic gold. She had an executive coach that stayed with her the whole tournament and how beneficial it was. So this coach I'm in conversation with.

She doesn't even get paid enough as a head coach to relocate her entire family. So she's now away from her partner and kids. She's having to pay partly for her own travel. So she's having to pay for her own hotel so that she can be head coach and is in desperate need for support. And just sometimes that independent person to offload to like, my God, this is stressful. She can't afford it. But she's the head coach of a really big team.

And yet her male equivalent of the same team, it's written into his contract, we'll pay you X amount per year. And if you want a coach, we'll pay that coach as well. you know, it's in one of the fastest growing sports. So it really is a problem.

Anyway, do you hear from women who've gone in, taken a look at it, turned around and gone back out again?

I think there's a lot, I think the statistics like Leanne was saying, because those statistics haven't shifted in however many years, it's quite clear that that is the norm, that women are going in, they're experiencing coaching and they're dropping out. And I think what Leanne was saying earlier, the work that we're trying to do at the moment isn't about the numbers, because the numbers are just staying static, it's how can we get more women into the system but then keep them in the system.

because the numbers should increase. Also, when you were talking there, Leanne, in response to something that you saying earlier about societal attitudes, it's still that belief, isn't it, that when you have kids, that women are going to take on all those caring responsibilities. So we also hear the fact that women are having to make decisions between whether they stay at home and look after children or, in the case you've just given, end up having to live, you know.

miles away from their kids or whether they sacrifice their career and at the moment it seems like you know women can't have both. They have to make that harsh decision and that isn't something that seems to happen for men.

or at the very top end if you're Emma Hayes. Or do you go actually the day to day of a club that I don't want to do and bring up my child, but actually the international, you know, she's gonna, she's been that good. She's gonna be able to find a job that fits that, which is, it's rubbish, isn't it really?

Yeah, but she's

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean the Emma Hay situation, I think I'm right in saying she's the highest paid female football coach. So therefore her team USA and Emma can afford to pay for an executive coach.

But she actually walked away from the kiss. She said, I couldn't bring up a child. The two didn't balance for her.

And I think, you know, to be fair, that is the same on the, for male coaches as well. There have been some male coaches that have said, I think, you know, even Jürgen Klopp, when he came away from Liverpool and he said like, this is a pretty stressful job, I need a break. And he wanted to spend time with his family. it is obviously, the pressures of sport don't change, whether you're male or female, it's the resources available. Like how many women can take, you know, Jürgen Klopp.

He never has to work again. He's got enough resources to have as much time off work as he wants. you know, and again, this is one of the other issues. If a female coach loses a job or steps away, she's got to find a job straight away because you don't get enough to have a break. So I think that financial resource thing is a big thing when it comes to, know, women in all different kinds of career make that decision. If you want to be a lawyer or, you know, a CEO.

Yeah, he's...

six and.

You figure a way out of how you balance the sacrifices and the family and that kind of thing. But if we want that from female coaches, we need to support them to be able to have both. Like it is possible, you just need support to do that.

I think you've got, we talk about it a lot, the job of the coach, that redesign issue is still designed for the ideal worker, the unencumbered worker, that I can travel long hours, can long days.

Don't say the phrase. interviewed what two years ago, I think you and I were on a panel and you said you've got to change the model and that phrase, change the model has stuck with me. have used it many times. I do genuinely credit you, but you know, this is what we're talking about. If you're cop is walking away from it.

It's an unencumbered worker. So it's designed in the image of that worker, but who's more, let's be honest, more likely to be a man. They don't have those caring expectations at that, that, you know, that women have like Annette was saying about. You can travel, you can work long hours. You know, we're celebrating the heroes in that way. And, know, I'm doing some work with a partner around women as performance directors, because...

you know, it's even worse as performance directors. And that job is designed in a way that you have to travel 200 days a year. It's just how, you know, realistic is that to expect people, anybody, like we said. I think the difference as well, we've done some work with men and women coaches and actually men experience more work life conflict. However, men perceive that to be less stressful than women.

And I think it's the perception. I'm not a psychologist, but I believe it's the perception of that that's the crucial thing there. So again, it's the design. That's what I'm really occupied with at the moment.

was never really designed. And there's an image that's always stuck in my mind that Leanne did a webinar of years ago of a pipe. And we're trying to squish all these women in and then like there's none coming out the other end of the pipe. And I think that's because high performance sport has never been designed. It's just happened to be this way. And we're trying to shove women in in somewhere that's not yet made for them. So that's the real exciting, again, changing that narrative. It's that exciting opportunity of women's sport.

is we can actually design it to fit women.

Do we need a club, a big women's club? Let's go for it's going to start with the women saying, right, we're actually going to have two head coaches. We're going to have joint head coaches because they can share the press. mean, you're having the media two, three, four times a week or whatever. Is that what somebody needs to do or we're going to have a... How do you change that? What is this model that you're going to create?

We have talked, haven't we?

It's all about having coaching roles where they are shared and... Yeah.

Yeah, co-coaching.

That happened with Tottenham Hotspur a few years ago. There was a male and female head coach.

Yeah, and we talked recently to a female coach, high performance female coach, easy for me to say, and she co-coaches with a male coach in her sport. Yes, it received a lot of pushback, but she's got a bit more of that kudos that she can push back again. And she said it works brilliantly. So for example, you she was saying the other day, a male coach really had a long week, very busy, exhausted. And she said, let me pick it up this week. And it works. And of course,

It works immensely. We've just seen in Norway, of course, is it Viking that have just won the Norwegian league with co-coaching team, two co-head coaches, male coaches. And again, they had a lot of pushback, they said at the start and for the first season, no, it didn't work. They had one of the worst seasons, I think, and then they've just won the championship for the first time and it's working. So this is what I'm saying. We've got it.

try different ways of working and I think sport is so traditional isn't it? This is the way we've always done it.

you need the person you can sack. Maybe the one person that you go, it's your fault. And maybe the players, they've been brought up to that person is picking the team. That person is giving me a contract. There's got to be the full guy.

Yeah, I mean, and again, it goes back to that and encumbered work, I think, where we still celebrate the heroes and that individual style of working. So, absolutely, I think there is a lot of focus then on the manager and yeah, I don't know if sports are ready.

but we've got to try something a bit different. And I love that analogy, Vicky, of, you know, is women's sport, it's like a blank canvas, is it? much, you know, that can we redesign things, try things a bit different. And that's the opportunity and that strength base, like you were saying, rather than, this is bad, lack of, actually it's a real good opportunity.

Cody Royal has coined the phrase chronic individualism and he's written a book called Second Set of Eyes. And he makes the point that traditionally coaches are that individual hero, the top of the team, the one that screams and shouts on the sideline. If the team win, it's on them. If they fail, it's on them. And that's never, that's what I was referring to before about coaching itself has never been designed. You know, again, the way sport has gone, there's always just been that head of the team.

And coaching is not what it used to be five years ago, 10 years ago, a hundred years ago. And we really need to move away from that chronic individualism, whether it's co-coaching or not, it's actually about the support package around that coach because it's just so much coaching as a whole is just different than what it has been. So yeah, it's just what an exciting opportunity to design what a coach could be and get away from that traditional chronic individualism that it always has been.

was speaking to a really high profile female coach in football, probably one of the most historically biggest names in the game. And she said to me the biggest challenge for her has always been the players. And we've seen that, haven't we, in the Australian women's football team. They also did their coach, their female coach. And we still, there is still that issue, I think, of players, the resistance from players pushing back on having perhaps women.

That has to be factored in, are the players ready? We need to model that, model different ways of working and factor in. think the players could be quite resistant to that.

So what are some of the initiatives to change the numbers that we talked about at the very beginning? Give me some green shoots.

I mean there's been a number of initiatives and programmes specifically designed for getting more women into coaching and I think for some women those work but clearly from the statistics that we're seeing they're not working well enough and I think it goes back to what Leanne was saying before it's not just about getting more women into the system and creating

you know, women-led mentor programs or, you know, women-only courses because they just don't seem to be fully working. It's about redesigning the system. The system has been set up in lots of different ways and I think some of the research that we're doing at the moment is showing the complexity of that. It isn't just around CPD and training opportunities and finances.

and societal attitudes about women's caring roles. There's so much more than that. And that's all sort of meshing together just to make this a really complex web of barriers and challenges that women are having to face. I think it's about unpacking all of the issues that we're seeing and looking and like Leanne, you were saying yesterday at an event, what's happening in one space has impact on other spaces.

So we have to do an overhaul of the system and that's no easy task.

No, I mean, we work like Annette's saying, we work with a lot of sports and the default is programmes, positive action programmes across sports. They still, I think, have a place at the moment because of where we are. I don't think they serve the purpose they're supposed to in terms of they don't get women the jobs necessarily. They don't necessarily raise women's credibility or increase opportunities for. What they do serve is that sense of

Visibility, belonging in that space, connection to other women at birth.

Some of them just strike me as a nice tagline. And as you're saying, there's something brute and branch needs to happen rather than.

this is root and branch, absolutely. And sports not so good at that. We tend to mark our own homework in sport, but that's what's needed. And I think there's a shift. I think there's an increasing readiness for that. Certainly, you know, I've been doing this work for 20 years and I'm sure Vicky will testify to this as well. There is a shift, isn't there, to a willingness to at least have the conversation. Whether sport is ready. We asked the question yesterday with

workforce leads an event, how ready are you from the shift from representation to redesign? At the moment, programs have a value and they have a use, not for their intended purpose, but certainly we speak to lot of women coaches and they say, without that program, I probably wouldn't be here in the sport. But it's just to be around other women. It's very isolating. can't get away from coaching as a lonely job.

for all coaches, but particularly for women. You walk into a room and you're the only woman in there. I spoke to a woman coach the other day and she said, I walked into a space and I was the only woman, 30 men, they're all in black tracksuits. That's quite intimidating, that space. So in that way, these women only programs, positive action programs, there's a sense of cultural safety and belonging. Whether they impact progression and promotion, et cetera.

there's a lot to be desired for that. don't think they have that intended purpose, that they don't have that impact, but they have a purpose in other ways.

And do you think what the NFL has done, what the success that you are seeing with the, you know, having women as far as coaches, and as we've said, they don't have to be the head coach, you know, let's not obsess about that. Do you think that could be the change that actually just just one Premier League club has female analyst sat on the side just, you know, and that suddenly somebody goes, actually, what have we been doing wrong? Why haven't we been doing?

Yeah, do you know, think the NFL is actually one of the best examples of this. So I'm very lucky to know Laurie Locus, was the assistant D-line coach in the Tambay Buccaneers who won the Super Bowl. And so I've had some great insights from from her experience over the years. And I think what I've seen was number one, it was the intervention from the NFL themselves. And then number two, the change of narrative.

Why would I not want women on the team? And his wife was also very encouraging from that side as well. And then they proved that within two years, mean, Tom Brady definitely helped being the quarterback on the team, but they proved within two years that they had a female strength and conditioning coach and a female, you know, D-line coach. And that was huge headlines, absolutely monstrous headlines. And then for a couple of years after that, every year you would see, this year we've got...

five female coaches in the NFL season. This year we've got 12 female coaches in the NFL season. Those headlines aren't there anymore because it's so normal. You'll struggle, you know, I know we're in mid season now, but you'll struggle to find a headline that says how many coaches, female coaches are in the league because it's so normal. And it's like, okay, women had to prove they can win the Super Bowl. Pretty hard task to do. But once they've done it and once Laurie...

No

open the doors, you know, now it's just so normal. So they continue the forum every year. They keep putting the women in front of the coaches. And the other thing with the forum, I remember hearing that the first year they did it, only three teams turned up and then five teams turned up the next year. And now every single team go because again, going back to the soccer football example, 20 % female head coaches, only, you know, 90 odd percent of one with a female head coach.

Who are going to put a tenner on? So I think now we're starting to show that if and when we do get a female coach in that role, they're damn good because they have to be, they absolutely have to be the best of the best. And now they're proving they win. So it never gets talked about in British sport, drives me mad. know, why are we not talking about, look at this model in the NFL? What could we do in women's football, women's rugby over here?

So that's how we changed the model.

Well, mean, talk more broadly, like in business, I mean, it's two principles I remember reading about, about engagement and contact, have been really key principles of improving women in leadership in terms of those who make the decisions to actually come in contact and have contact with different people in the organisation and engage with different people.

And that is a classic example of that working because often we have these assumptions and ideas. We've never had even any contact. We've never seen women coaching. So, and that's the societal patterns that Annette was talking about that follow people into. That's what we expect women are not going to be capable. So it challenges the ideas. And I think the ideas, the values, the norms, the traditions in sport, these are the foundations for these disproportionate numbers for the poor experience.

And that's really, we've got a mindset shift here, hearts and minds job, as well as tinkering around the edges of the nice program here and there. Is it changing people's minds about women's capabilities? Because again, through our research, we're showing, yes, women are getting into jobs more in some sports. It's not because women are being appointed on the basis of capability. We hear the things like, well, they can go into the changing rooms then, you know, so they can deal with periods. Yes, they can, but they're also.

really good coaches and that's again, how do we tell that story?

A lot of the time you hear women are being allowed to go to training camps because of the safeguarding officer, because there's a female athlete. So whilst we are seeing more successes in the lionesses and the rugby, and we've got more female athletes, then for those reasons you need more female coaches. But that shouldn't be the reason that these women are being appointed.

Just to add to my example before I always shout about Lori Locus, she didn't start playing American football till she was 44. She won the Super Bowl in her fifties as a coach. It's a sport that you can't even play professionally as a woman. mean, given the opportunity, look what she's done. you know, again, it's not about...

There's hope for me.

just retiring female athletes. It's not just about women coaching women. Open the door and let women show them how bloody good they are. It's been proven time and time again. And going back to me banging the drum about changing that narrative. When you give a female coach an opportunity, I mean, how many times do have to prove Olympic gold medals, World Cup wins, Super Bowl wins?

What would you? And also just to finish, Leanne's not said a famous phrase yet that I've seen repeat time and time again. Leanne's the one that started to change this narrative. Fix the system, not the women. Because most governing bodies put on yet another women's coach development program. And ironically, the content on them programs are needed in men's sports almost more. And it's about that fixing the system, not.

the women. I'm going to get Leanne a t-shirt with that on one day. And that's what we need to focus on is that system. Whether it's designed or not, it's got to be fixed and got to be changed.

Yeah.

Keep fighting the good fight, ladies. Good luck with it. Good luck with the task force. Thank you. One day we'll all be the NFL. If you want to know more about what the workforce is doing, check out the show notes. Do like, follow and subscribe to the podcast and tell all your friends about it. We'll see you next time.