Learning to Fight Like a Girl: A Narrative Exploration of Female Leadership Development Through Intercollegiate Athletics

Women are disproportionately represented in leadership positions. This narrative study addresses this inequality. More than half of the population of the United States are women, and yet, it is rare to find a Fortune 500 company led by a female CEO. Women are underrepresented in leadership positions in America from the nation’s Congress to the Supreme Court, and there has never been a female President of the United States. In intercollegiate athletics, women similarly do not commonly ascend to head coach or administrative positions. Women’s fight for equal rights is a long battle dating back to the birth of America. Despite progress made, we can do more. This narrative qualitative inquiry analyzed female head coaches and the perceptions of female student-athletes regarding their leadership qualities, potential, approach, and journeys to leadership through a feminist theoretical perspective. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in an NCAA Division I college campus in the Western/Pacific region of the United States of America. All 10 participants, three head coaches and seven student-athletes, perceived themselves as leaders, though they did not always feel this way. They attributed their ascent to valuable support from family, coaches, and other women. Sport played an integral role in their development. This study emphasizes the need for society to support women’s leadership development through the deconstruction of barriers, the creation of programs that bring women together in a network of support, and the maintenance of policies such as Title IX that mandate women’s equality with men. Implications for further research are discussed along with the introduction of a possible leadership program, within a higher education setting, based on campus ecology, self-reflection, and advocacy frameworks.