The invisible norm: An exploration of the intersections of sport,gender and leadership

Abstract

The gender leadership problem is not the underrepresentation of women, but the dominant presence of groups of men and valued forms of masculinities. We argue that critical leadership studies would benefit by considering sport to explain the nuanced relationships between leadership, sport, men and masculinity and the ensuing invisible norms that marginalise women. In doing so, we respond to calls for critical leadership scholars to examine situated power relations in more reflexive and innovative ways. Sport influences, and is influenced by, the inequalities of gender, class, age and race. The intersection of sport, leadership and gender provides an otherwise unavailable insight into what is normalised, men and the masculine subtext of leadership We examine New Zealand’s relationship with Rugby Union to achieve both of these aims. We conclude that Rugby is anything but benign or irrelevant when it comes to understanding gender and leadership in New Zealand.

Keywords

Privilege power gender leadership norms

A core feature of studies exploring the relationship between gender and/or women and leadership in business settings is the consistent storyline of a lopsided playing field. Privilege and power continue to reside with groups of men (Acker, 2006, 2009; Bendl and Schmidt, 2010; Billing and Alvesson, 2014; Binns, 2010; Eagly and Carli, 2007; Gatrell and Swan, 2008; Muhr and Sullivan, 2013; Powell, 2014; Sinclair, 2007). While the subject of much research attention and debate, a lot is known of the problematic nature of masculine cultural norms and the organisation of work. These are aptly portrayed in metaphors such as the labyrinth (Eagly and Carli, 2007), glass ceiling and firewalls (Bendl and Schmidt, 2010), glass cliff (Bruckmuller et al., 2014; Ryan et al., 2016) and inequality regimes (Acker, 2006). Yet, despite ample evidence and four decades of scholarly theorisation of what is going on (Powell, 2014), unravelling the leadership ‘gender knot’ remains contentious and difficult (Johnson, 2014: 227) in both traditional and neoliberal employment environments (McGregor, 2014; Williams, 2013). We concur with Sinclair (2014: 24) who asks, ‘why is it still more comfortable to keep the “problem” of gender located in women and to hold women responsible for fixing their own exclusion’ (Sinclair, 2014: 24)? Put simply, when talking about the relationship between gender and leadership the problem is not the underrepresentation of women, but the dominant presence of groups of men and valued forms of masculinities.

Confronting ways to untangle this challenge and irritation at the distortions present in popular leadership rhetoric prompted our curiosity in this well-theorised topic. What else could lurk beneath what we already know? What other lens offers additional insights to gender and leadership? Inspired by the writing of Sinclair (2005b, 2005c, 2007, 2014) and Hearn (2014) one ‘what else’ is the social institution of sport. This choice is reflective of a heightened awareness of the influences of sport through our personal and professional backgrounds.¹ Specifically, we seek to explain the nuanced relationships between leadership, sport, men and masculinity and the ensuing invisible norms that marginalise women. Our purpose is twofold. First, we want to demonstrate to critical leadership scholars the utility of sport to understanding leadership and gender. Second, we want to argue that the intersection of sport, leadership and gender provides an otherwise unavailable insight into what is normalised, men and the masculine subtext of leadership (Hearn, 2014; Lewis and Simpson, 2010; Muhr and Sullivan, 2013; Sinclair, 2007). We examine New Zealand’s relationship with Rugby Union to achieve both of these aims. In doing so, we respond to calls for critical leadership scholars to examine situated power relations in more reflexive and innovative ways (Alvesson and Spicer, 2012; Collinson and Tourish, 2015).

In this article, we bring together strands from the lead researcher’s critical and interdisciplinary work in the contexts of organisation studies and sport. We integrate these with other interdisciplinary research. Specifically, we adapt Syed and Ozbilgin’s (2009) three-level, relational framework. At the macro-national level, historical, socio-economic and cultural relations are brought to the fore. The meso-level explores work organisations with the individual the central focus of analysis at the micro-level. Aspirations, identity and agency are key at the micro-individual level. Developed within the tradition of critical realism, Syed and Ozbilgin (2009) see the layered but interrelated and interdependent parts of the framework as mirroring social reality. They argue that this allows for ‘life and work to be studied as involving objective structures, measurable attributes and processes, subjective experiences, interpretation and stand points’ (Syed and Ozbilgin, 2009: 2450). A further strength according to the authors is how the framework acts as a conduit to facilitate interdisciplinary and multi-method research projects. Syed and Ozbilgin (2009) developed the relational framework to better comprehend the complexities of context-specific, diversity management practices. It is however, a broad analytic framework that lends itself to adaptation. For this article, our specific focus is the relational links between macro- and meso-levels that, in single-level leadership studies, can appear opaque or forgotten (Jackson and Parry, 2011; Klenke, 2011).

The social construct of gender and the gendering processes that confer privilege on some men connects the levels of the framework. Gender is therefore theorised as a social practice manifested in everyday life practices (Acker, 2006, 2009; Calas et al., 2014). This perspective highlights how particular social assumptions are associated with male or female roles. This implies that there are conscious and unconscious expectations that men and women play specific roles in society and in the workplace (Lewis and Simpson, 2010). For the sake of clarity, we consider gendering leadership as ‘gendering men and leadership and how different men, masculinities and men’s practices relate both to each other and to leadership’ (Hearn, 2014: 420). Hearn (2014) provides a substantive and reflective overview of the key contribution of critical studies on men and masculinities (CSMM) to how leadership and managerial practices² are socially constructed and understood. The writing of Connell (2005) and Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) on the notion of hegemonic masculinity, its relationship with shifting historical contexts and other subordinate masculinities and femininities, is central to masculinities theory (Buchbinder, 2013; Hearn, 2014; Lusher and Robins, 2009). Important to our argument are insights from post-structural reformulations, which make clear local and regional variations of masculinities. The variations underpin how the various forms of manliness are ‘constructed, performed and read as masculine’ (Pringle and Hickey, 2010: 119).

Conceptualisations of dominant forms of masculinities link closely to male privilege and patriarchy. Johnson (2014) defines patriarchy by the extent a society naturalises male privilege. Three measures are given. The first is the extent a society accepts ‘male dominance’ in authority and power. The second is the way male cultural ideals are normalised. For example women are positioned as ‘the other’. The third is the extent to which men’s activities are the primary focus of attention. Research has clearly established leadership and business as examples of gendered ‘spaces of male privilege’ (Gatrell and Swan, 2008: 72). The sport context is certainly another (Abdel-Shehid and Kalman-Lamb, 2011; McKay, 1991, 1997; Kihl et al., 2013; Messner, 2007). Yet, when we scan the indexes of The Oxford Handbook of Gender in Organisations (Kumra et al., 2014) and The Sage Handbook on Leadership (Bryman et al., 2011) the word sport is absent. Is it that within these two areas of scholarship the contemporary phenomenon of sport is not worthy of attention? Is sport irrelevant to our understanding of gender or leadership, or even gender and leadership? In the sections that follow, we argue that institutionalised sport is indeed relevant to critical leadership studies (CLS).

Taking sport seriously

Sport is global (Dickson and Malaia, 2017). Sport does not exist in a vacuum divorced from the broader historical, social, political, technological and economic realities (Coakley, 2014). Sport is a microcosm of larger society (Day et al., 2012). If we consider that sport emerged out of the ‘gender, race and class-based stratification systems’ of Europe and the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Dworkin and Messner, 1999: 341), we can immediately sense that ‘sport is seen both to shape and be shaped by the inequalities of gender, class, age and race which pervade all other spheres of society’ (McKay, 1991: 16).

The overt stratification processes that are a justified part of sport explain much about the ideological beliefs that frame performance, achievement and physicality. In particular, a sport lens allows us to see how dominant forms of masculinities link closely to male privilege. From its inception, sport has been prudently segregated by gender, serving to normalise naturalistic views of the gendered body (Dworkin and Messner, 1999). Such conservatism is exemplified and reinforced by the heteronormative rituals associated with competitive sport (Williams, 2013). Conforming to such rituals can ‘easily push men into leadership positions and women into support roles’ (Williams, 2013: 8).

The synergies between business and sport are well recognised in the popular press. Journalists specialise in reporting the business aspect of sport organisations – boardroom battles, CEO resignations and financial viability to name just a few common themes. Within academia, the leading journals are the Journal of Sport Management, Sport Management Review and the European Sport Management Quarterly. Undergraduate and postgraduate programs in sport management, sport business and sport leadership are increasingly legitimate. Sport is a metaphor for business culture (Braund, 2014) and the language of sport is embedded in the language of managerial work, business practices and leadership (Braund, 2014; Gregory, 2009; Knoppers, 2011; Wolfe et al., 2005). The scenario of ‘what can business leaders learn from sport’, generally elite men’s team sport, is evident in the literature (Burnes and O’Donnell, 2011; Kerr, 2015). Other studies highlight the attractiveness of athletic attributes to the modern workplace (Day et al., 2012; Kniffin et al., 2014; Knoppers, 2011; Wolfe et al., 2005). However, there is a lack of critical or reflexive analysis by either critical management or critical leadership scholars (Knoppers, 2011; Knoppers and Anthonissen, 2005).

The setting for our argument is New Zealand (NZ). New Zealand is a small, geographically isolated country with a population of about 4.5 million. The NZ sport system is well developed (Dickson and Naylor, 2013) to the extent that whether you are an avid sports person or not, its presence is difficult to avoid. It is NZ’s most pervasive form of collective behaviour (Leberman et al., 2012) providing many high-profile rituals and ceremonies. Sporting personalities are portrayed as national icons, arguably, ahead of politicians or successful business people (Thomson and Sim, 2007). In the wider environment, the ‘taken-for-granted naturalness of sport’ (Piggin et al., 2009: 89) positions sport as something intrinsically good, a belief underpinned by an altruistic wish that sport is somehow value-free and non-ideological (Collins, 2008). Contrary to this perception, examples of its reproductive power to sustain socio-cultural and economic inequalities are an integral part of the NZ landscape (Ryan, 2010). Rugby Union³ is promoted as NZ’s national sport and as such is an implicit part of NZ history and culture (Moon, 2013). Described as both a ‘game for all classes’ and ‘a violent and manly game’ (Harris, 2008: 21) the strength and power requirements combine with physical body contact to personify hyper-masculinity. In contrast, Netball, is designated the national sport for women and was designed to reflect patriarchal definitions of femininity (Tagg, 2008). The game was devised for a small physical space with a norm that females wear skirts, despite the practicalities of wearing shorts. Our point here is that sport affects and is affected by the macro-national socio-cultural level. Sport has become one of the key sites for the confirmation of masculinity (Messner, 2007). In NZ and elsewhere, sport shapes nationalistic rituals including stories of leadership and the archetype of a ‘great’ leader (Ryan, 2010).

In the remainder of this article we illustrate how sport allows a more nuanced understanding of what is normalised when it comes to men and the masculine subtext of leadership. In doing so, we argue that the social institution of sport is part of the ‘what else’ that both constructs and reflects elements of a masculine cultural ideal that allows groups of men to lead, whilst women follow. We traverse the links between the macro-national socio-cultural level and the meso-level of work organisations. We begin with a brief review of the NZ leadership problem and introduce the concept of the invisible norm (Lewis and Simpson, 2010). We follow with an exploration of how sport contributes to the gendering of leadership at the macro-national socio-cultural level and the intersections of how these beliefs are manifested in meso-level organisations. We conclude our argument that sport stimulates new thinking on the persistent practice of the underrepresentation of women in leadership roles in private and public sector organisations.

The leadership problem

A detailed review of leadership definitions is beyond the scope of this article. Indeed as Alvesson and Spicer (2012) remind us, defining leadership is a fruitless exercise. However, the ‘what else’ question framing this article acknowledges that the leadership discourse is both popular and powerful. Consistent with its conceptual confusion and endemic vagueness (Alvesson and Spicer, 2012), we see leadership as a ‘complex, ongoing and interconnected series of overlapping events, systems, practices, people, stories, institutions, histories, objects, spaces, places and technologies’ (Kelly, 2015: 186). Hence, as Sinclair (2013: 2) comments, ‘how societies and groups define leadership depends on their history, cultural myths and ideologies’. In our estimation, New Zealanders tend to take a reductionist approach (Kelly, 2015). A fetish for individual leaders best illustrates this. Engaging with the social processes that produce leadership is not a common practice. New Zealanders tend to look for something that is practical, easily understood and fit-for-purpose. This helps explain the resilience and tenacity of the belief that leadership equates to tough, individual heroic performances, ‘out front decisiveness or “greatness”, an adjective that is almost always applied to men’ (Sinclair, 2013: 2).

Research on gender and leadership clearly shows that women are not the problem that ‘needs fixing’ (Bendl and Schmidt, 2010; Eagly and Carli, 2007; Powell, 2014) nor is the solution as simple as ‘adding more women in to leadership-as-usual’ (Sinclair, 2013: 17). Yet, NZ is no exception to ongoing discussions on the ‘leaking female leadership talent pipeline’ (Ministry for Women, 2013: 1) or in pursuing flurries of initiatives, policy cure-alls and policy failures (McGregor, 2014; National Council of Women of New Zealand, NCWNZ, 2015). Central to the discussion in NZ, as it is elsewhere, is the significant increase in the number of women in paid work. In NZ, 63.6% of women are in paid employment compared to 74.6% of men (NCWNZ, 2015). However, women represent only a small portion of the high-profile and well-paid leadership roles despite comprising 65% of tertiary graduates. Only 5% of CEO’s and approximately 15% of the NZ Stock Exchange listed top 100 board members are women (Human Rights Commission, 2012). New Zealand in 2003 was ranked fourth among the 36 member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in the representation of women in management roles but has now slipped to 17th (NCWNZ, 2015). Women occupy only 32% of the 121 seats in the NZ Parliament (NCWNZ, 2015).

Neoliberalism as a legitimising ideology is so pervasive that NZ is described as ‘one of the most neoliberal countries in the OECD’ (Kelsey, 2015: 121). One outcome is a lenient and voluntarist approach to fairness and equity. The National Council for Women of New Zealand are one group who question this approach by highlighting that in policy terms, gender inequality is a wicked, multi-layered systemic problem that can no longer be solved by linear thinking (NCWNZ, 2015: 20). Simon-Kumar (2011: 84) draws attention to the aspiration-reality dichotomy within NZ. On the one hand there is the language of liberal rights-based feminism (Prugl, 2015) that speaks of equality of opportunity, individual freedom and choice for women. On the other hand, quantitative differences highlight clearly the persistence of gender/sex inequalities (Human Rights Commission, 2012; NCWNZ, 2015; Ryan et al., 2014). So while softer macro-policy responses extol an economic rationale to ‘add more women’ (Sinclair, 2013: 17) through diversity management initiatives (Ministry for Women, 2013; Ryan et al., 2014), NZ empirical studies reaffirm that rhetoric is stronger than actual practice (Pringle and Strachan, 2015). Little is done to deconstruct or eliminate the complexity of factors underpinning inequality. A contributing problem is that these factors are deeply rooted in the economic and social structures. Structural inequality persists in shaping gender relations, including the masculine norm of leadership (McGregor, 2014; NCWNZ, 2015; Ryan et al., 2014).

Invisible norms

The leadership problem in New Zealand (and elsewhere) is male dominance in authority, influence and power. Sinclair (2005b: 50) synthesises this notion by positioning leadership as ‘backed by a culturally embedded but formally unrecognised ideology of masculinity serve the important purposes of maintaining the status quo, the privilege of an elite, and of perpetuating assumed assessments of who looks like leadership material’. Poignant here is the degree to which the masculine imagery of leadership is taken-for-granted, naturalised and consequently, not challenged (Benchop et al., 2012; Binns, 2010; Collinson and Hearn, 1996; Lewis and Simpson, 2010). In other words, the interaction of privileged groups of men in leadership roles and normalised forms of masculinity create a normative set of constraints (Coston and Kimmel, 2012; Knoppers et al., 2013; Hearn, 2014). Here, the sports that men play are a primary focus of attention.

In pursuing the ‘what else’ we start with a qualitative content analysis of selected texts (Hesse-Biber and Leavy, 2006). As part of a wider three-year ethnographic research project, the lead author collected a wide variety of visual and textual data. The concepts of leadership, sport and gender were central to the literature search. Newspaper articles were selected for their ability to showcase the often subtle and not so subtle ways New Zealanders are saturated with sport-related messages. An inductive approach to content analysis is used to interpret and describe the cultural meanings, ideas, images and themes apparent in the material (Elo and Kyngas, 2007). As researchers we are not value-free. Our intent is to demonstrate the utility of sport as a lens to draw out the cultural processes that construct the nuanced relationships between leadership, sport, men and masculinity. While the specific context is NZ where sport is pervasive, sport is a global phenomenon, as is the ‘leadership problem’. Sport is a site where power relations are enacted at the macro-level (Abdel-Shehid and Kalman-Lamb, 2011) and synergies between meso-level business and sport are clearly identifiable (Burnes and O’Donnell, 2011; Day et al., 2012).

The macro-level influence of sport in shaping a leadership discourse

Similar to discourses on leadership, the meanings associated with sport are contextual and contested (Leberman et al., 2012). As we have indicated, the importance attributed to institutionalised competitive sport is not hard to find, especially male team sport. New Zealand historian James Belich encapsulates this recognition when he argues that New Zealand ‘should be the world capital of the historical study of sport. It is not – almost as though sport is a religion too important for scholars to tamper with’ (Belich 2001: 370). The Rugby-in-New Zealand-is-like-religion theme continues. Mike Grimshaw (cited in Bayer, 2013: 15), a sociologist from the University of Canterbury asserts, ‘sport and rugby need to be taken seriously in New Zealand as a means of engaging with and understanding our society, as seriously as religion’.

In this instance it is high performance, elite team sport that is hugely influential. Indeed, as Abdel-Shehid and Kalman-Lamb (2011: 5) observe, the upsurge of multi-media global representations of high performance sport can tell us a lot about the way games should be played and importantly, power relations and societal inequalities. To illustrate, Deos (2014: 1174) notes how, for small nations such as NZ, with limited finance and a relatively small population, success in sport can create an image on the world stage that generates social capital or soft power. To illustrate Peter Miskimmin, the CEO of Sport New Zealand, the government’s crown agency for sport states, ‘sport does something for this country that other things can’t do’ (Cleaver, 2015: B8). This notion is evident the local commonly used phrase that when it comes to sport ‘NZ punches above its weight’. Indeed, the British-based Independent newspaper published an article under the headline, ‘Discovering how a tiny island of 4.5 million people came to dominate rugby worldwide’ (Merrill, 2015).

So while ‘winning’ on the global stage in elite sport matters, what matters most in NZ is winning in male team sports, especially Rugby Union.⁴ There are many explanations for this. Moon (2013: 264) describes the game as ‘garnished with its own thriving mythology’. Historians such as Belich (2001) see it as a strategic decision by successive governments to forge a unified NZ identity. Harris (2008) notes that to gain credibility one must, at the very least be able to voice an opinion on the game. One recent external observer identified NZ as one of three countries (two others being Australia and Canada) where:

The national culture takes its cues from sporting mythology and practice.

These strong cultural, some would say tribal, influences are derived almost exclusively from team sports, such as [in the case of NZ] rugby, played at the elite and highly remunerated level by men. (Braund, 2014: 8)

Similarly, Kohe (2010: 1506), a UK sports historian, describes the NZ Sports Hall of Fame as ‘homage paid to the national rugby fixation’.

The iconic status given to rugby and ‘rugby greats’ is further demonstrated in its ability to divide the nation. The most graphic example is the 1981 Springbok tour (white South African rugby team). The riots that occurred were unprecedented. Commentators have since debated what other factors led to quite disparate groups to oppose the apartheid regime in South Africa. One reason given to explain why so many women and feminist activists joined the widespread and often violent, protest actions was women’s hostility to rugby’s inherently sexist overtones (Booth, 2007; Harris, 2008). Curtin (2015) shows how a focus on gender and rugby portrays the game as violent, oppressive and exclusive of women. Still, no female has ever been a board member of the New Zealand Rugby Union despite a campaign launched in 2012 by the NZ Human Rights Commission (Human Rights Commission, 2012).

A further illustration of the inherently gendered nature of rugby union and the taken-for-granted place of rugby in NZ national culture was New Zealand’s successful bid to host the Rugby World Cup in 2011. In his memoirs, Event CEO Martin Sneddon (2012: 112) stated:

Where one stadium holds four million supporters [close to the population of NZ]; where the entire economy is boosted by an All Black test [rugby is a significant commercial environment]; where there are more rugby players and rugby pitches per capita than any other country; where the All Black captain [The All Blacks is the name of the national rugby team] is generally regarded as holding the highest office in the land.

The positioning of these statements is telling. Certainly, the initial aim was to win hosting rights to the Rugby World Cup. However, behind the bidding process a politically motivated, simple story was created (Sneddon, 2012). It was based on the belief that an elite male sporting contest could be the catalyst to actually deliver a ‘stadium of four million’. That nationalism resonates with masculine cultural themes is unsurprising. Nagel (2005: 401) states that ‘the culture and ideology of hegemonic masculinity go hand in hand with the culture and ideology of hegemonic nationalism. Sport can transcend social divisions and affirm political loyalties (Klenke, 2011). In this instance, it was rarely acknowledged by the organising body that a significant minority of the NZ population had no empathy for the game at all (Bruce, 2013).

Sneddon’s statements further illustrate the normalised heteronormative assumptions conveyed through elite sport (Abdel-Shehid and Kalman-Lamb, 2011). The statement suggests that a woman cannot hold the highest office in the land, play a sport that matters or at least one that serves the economic interests of the nation. Women, it is assumed, will support ‘their’ nation by getting behind ‘their’ national team (Nagel, 2005). Undeniably, engaging female support was viewed as necessary to achieve the storyline of ‘four million’ hosts (Sneddon, 2012). Ironically, NZ’s female Prime Minister at the time, Helen Clark, participated in the final stages of the bid (Harris, 2008). The Government appointed a Rugby World Cup Minister (in addition to the Minister of Racing and the Minister for Sport and Recreation), and school terms were moved accommodate the event. Event-related curriculum engaged students in learning activities relevant to their everyday lives and encouraged involvement in the event and sport (Ministry of Education, 2016). The relationship between Ministerial appointments, government policy and the impact of policy in creating a hierarchy of societal values by actively seeking citizen endorsement (Sam, 2007, 2011), signals how overt the re-definition of public good has been in elite sport.

Further examples of the normalised heteronormative assumptions conveyed through elite sport are not hard to find. The present NZ Prime Minister, John Key is viewed as an advocate of sports diplomacy to build international links. A former All Black and a former captain of the New Zealand cricket team, both obviously and necessarily male, accompanied the Prime Minister on diplomatic visits to the Pacific Islands (Trevett, 2009) and to India (Trevett, 2011). More recently, three French-based former All Black ‘royalty’ attended a dinner hosted by the French Prime Minister following bilateral trade talks between the French and NZ Prime Ministers (NZ Herald, 2016: A7). Richie McCaw, the now former All Black and ‘winning captain and exemplary leader’ is the ‘unquestioned’ brand ambassador for our national airline, Air New Zealand (Fletcher, 2015: B3). A newspaper article featured a picture of Ritchie McCaw, the then All Black captain holding the Bledisloe Cup, the trophy awarded to the winner of the annual Australia-New Zealand rugby series. The article contained a list of NZ businesses dubbed ‘NZ’s Bledisloe Team’ (Speirs, 2014: D6).

The 2015 Rugby World Cup in England again saturated mainstream media. Concerns of unfriendly time zones provided the impetus for last-minute legislation allowing bars and clubs to open without the need for a special licence. Despite widespread concerns, the need for ‘urgent legislation’ exemplified the links between masculinity, watching sport and alcohol consumption, another bastion of male identity (Gee and Jackson, 2010). In the aftermath of the Rugby World Cup the significance given to the back-to-back win is summed up in the words of one journalist who wrote ‘from the NZ rugby public’s perspective, it [winning] delivers peace of mind: for at least a few years there will be no inconvenient truth challenging the narrative of our supremacy’ (Thomas, 2015: 24). Ritchie McCaw, the All Black captain was awarded the Order of New Zealand, the country’s highest honour recognising his leadership and ‘years of combat’. A documentary film ‘Chasing Great’ tracing McCaw’s final year in professional rugby has been released in cinemas NZ wide (Rodger, 2016). McCaw also received the New Zealander of the Year Award, 2016 for his ‘14-year professional rugby career and unrivalled success as a leader and inspirational player’ and charity work (Scoop Independent News, 2016). The two other finalists for this prestigious award were Louise Nicholas, an advocate for the rights of women who have been victims of sexual violence and Rob Fenwick, a businessman and environmentalist. The key selection criterion was how each individual has made an outstanding contribution to the well-being of the nation (New Zealand Awards, 2016). That there was little public debate about McCaw’s selection and the subject of a feature film are further examples of how male advantage in valued elite sports remains uncontested and invisible.

Advocates for sport in NZ, generally male, fiercely defend sport as a gender-neutral space and a site of meritocracy (Shaw and Cameron, 2008). In doing so, localised gender regimes modelled by sport, render gender invisible. This is because of the overpowering presence of a dominant form of masculinity as hegemonic discourse (Ryan, 2010). Indeed, the deep-seated cultural attachment to ideals such as a level playing field and fair play speak to the inherent justice of sport, equal opportunities and egalitarianism (Hokowhitu, 2007). Critical analyses of sport, have long argued its reproductive power to sustain socio-cultural inequalities (Absel-Shehid and Kalman-Lamb, 2013; Messner, 2007). Abdel-Shehid and Kalman-Lamb (2013:125) talk of the ‘repressive or normalising structures’ of sport and suggest that, ‘sporting culture is a particular cultural site that produces this effect on behalf of the nation’. Heavily masculinised male team sports confer privilege at the macro-national socio-cultural level to a culturally exalted form of normative masculinity (Lusher and Robins, 2009). As such, a masculine subtext of leadership is legitimised (Hearn, 2014) with some men privileged by automatic ordination as a ‘natural’ leader. What is masked, unsaid or less understood is the ways such privileging frames the criteria for leadership roles in NZ private and public sector organisations. We now turn to conceptualising the intersections at the meso-organisational level.

The influence of sport in shaping the leadership ideal at the meso-level

The synergies between business leaders, managers and sport at the meso-level illustrate the various ways the macro-national socio-cultural beliefs about sex and gender can play out in the gendering of leadership and men. Sinclair (2005a: 94) encapsulates this dynamic:

Athleticism and sporting prowess, or a history of it, are important sources of corporate status and shared sport passions a basis of alliance. Managers’ bodily performances outside of work [behaviour in the corporate box at a sports event] are not irrelevant to their status at work. Legends develop around body identities, spawning corporate rituals involving bodily saturated performances.

Individuals act according to the implicit gender rules of expected behaviours (Ridgeway and Correll, 2004). Athleticism, sporting prowess, spectator interest and knowledge about sport is synonymous with men and normative forms of masculinity. As noted earlier, scholars have explored how attributes associated with sport are desired by workplaces and how the language of sport is embedded in the language of managerial work, business practices and leadership (Knoppers, 2011; Wolfe et al., 2005). One example is the book, Legacy, the subtitle of which is, what the All Blacks can teach us about the business of life (Kerr, 2015). Kerr (2015) provides 15 lessons for business leaders that are drawn from the high-performing, vision and values-based culture of the All Blacks. Building a performance culture, a heavy emphasis on winning, a clear game plan, risk-taking, abiding by the rules and strategies to negate the competition illustrate the values and beliefs underpinning predominant forms of masculine managerialism⁵ (e.g., strategic management) and competitive masculinities (Collinson and Hearn, 1996; Kerfoot and Knights, 1993, 1998). Importantly, the interconnectedness of leadership to the gendered cultures such managerial practices create are implicitly based on a male model of a worker. This ‘ideal’ worker is expected to be continually available, have no outside caring responsibilities and able to prioritise work above all else (Acker, 2006, 2009). The legitimacy given to the male worker model has, in turn, reinforced the boundaries of gender traditionalism (Acker, 2006). A useful framework to tease out meso-level intersections between the gendering of leadership, business organisations and male privilege amplified by sport is the concept ‘talk sports, play sports and utilise sport strategies’ (Gregory, 2009: 400).

Developed in the US corporate context, this framework’s purpose was to open up ‘the relationship between the role of competitive sports and the masculine embodiment of professional and executive work in organisations’ (Gregory, 2009: 400). ‘Talk sports’ gauges the extent to which the display of knowledge about sport such as teams, players, games and matches are used in work settings (Gregory, 2009). Knoppers and Anthonissen (2005) note how the content of such conversations may differ depending on the organisational context and which sex is numerically dominant. ‘Talk sports’ also identifies with the sport metaphors that are implicit in the language of managerial work. As such, metaphors make ‘cultural coherence, homology and hegemony possible’ (Klenke, 2011: 137). The term ‘high performance’ links closely to Frederick Taylor’s theory of scientific management and the principle of positioning the body as a machine to get maximum output (Abdel-Shehid and Kalman-Lamb, 2013). High performance work systems (HPWS) promote the similar idea to high performance sport that ‘there exists a system of work practices for core workers in an organization that leads in some way to superior performance’ (Boxall and Macky, 2009: 3). Similarly, team and team player imply unity and homogeneity and the positioning of a leader as a coach are but a few examples.

‘Play sports’ refers to the role that past and present participation in sport and how sport can build or leverage social and cultural capital (Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005; Gregory, 2009). The physically fit strong body is linked to stamina, a strong mind and the ability to cope under pressure. Networking by attending elite sports events, a deliberate choice of golf partners and golf club, sponsorship of congruent sport events and the use of high-profile athletes as exemplars of leaders and leadership are obvious ‘play sport’ examples. Homosociality and homophily are deeply embedded gendered practices that opens doors and creates privilege within organisations (Mavin et al., 2014). Mentoring arrangements often serve this purpose. One example is a global initiative that links recently or soon-to-be retired elite female athletes with prominent female business leaders who are members of the International Women’s Forum (Ernst and Young, 2016). According to Ernst and Young (2016), a multinational professional services firm, a background in sports can help accelerate a woman’s business career. The aim of this mentoring programme is to leverage the ‘unique strengths of elite female athletes’ and assist them in the transition to the business world (Ernst and Young, 2016). Now in its second year it remains to be seen how the gender dynamics ‘play out’ given the expectations that as potential business leaders this group ‘ought to perform’ (Muhr and Sullivan, 2013: 417).

Finally, and intertwined with the above, ‘sports strategies’ refers to attributes commonly associated with sport and desired by employers. These include perseverance, drive and competitiveness, pushing boundaries, identifying as a winner, setting goals, putting in the hours and working closely to a game plan (Gregory, 2009). There are many examples in NZ of the ways business organisations choose to position their values with those attributed to high performance sport. To illustrate using the words of ASB, a leading New Zealand bank:

ASB looks to align with organisations that share our values. Like ASB, the All Blacks share a long history and proud legacy as a Kiwi [NZ] institution. The high-performance culture of the All Blacks, New Zealand’s most successful sporting team, was a natural fit. ASB’s multi-year partnership with New Zealand Rugby includes three World Championship winning teams: the All Blacks, the All Blacks Sevens men's team and New Zealand Women's Sevens team. (ASB Bank Ltd New Zealand, 2016)

Sports strategies also align with how businesses engage with adventure based and/or physically demanding learning courses. Outward Bound (2016) is one such organisation located in the rugged terrain of the Marlborough Sounds in NZ. Auckland University of Technology has developed a Masters of Business Administration course that uses the sport of rowing to facilitate learning about senior leadership teams. As part of the course participants negotiate the meaning of ‘high performance’ to clarify the role of leadership in the process (Auckland University of Technology, 2016). Thus, the heavily masculine environment of sport is used as testing place to ‘learn the ropes’ of being a leader and leadership (Klenke, 2011: 137).

To summarise, sport, and heavily masculinised male team sports in particular, confer privilege to forms of normative masculinities and by association, position men as ‘natural’ leaders. The readily adaptable conceptual framework, ‘talk sports, play sports and utilise sport strategies’ (Gregory, 2009) provides the opportunity to better understand the gendering processes and the intersections between the macro- and meso-levels.

Concluding thoughts

In this article, we have demonstrated the utility of sport to understanding leadership and gender. We have argued that the intersection of sport, leadership and gender provides an otherwise unavailable insight into what is normalised, men and the masculine subtext of leadership. Our primary contribution is a more reflexive and innovative examination of situated power relations. We propose shifting attention away from women and instead asking questions about men, masculinities and privilege. Country and context matter in determining the attributes associated with a leader and the qualities of leadership. In light of the complex dynamics of gender construction we have positioned the heavily masculinised arena of sport as one part of the ‘what else’. In NZ, as is the case elsewhere, sport is a pervasive and gendered invisible norm (Lewis and Simpson, 2010). Sport matters because of the seemingly natural way it classifies and categorises bodies through celebrations of physical differences, the most observable being between men and women (Pringle, 2007). Feminist research has long drawn attention to the multiple ways sport constructs an ideology of gender difference (Hargreaves, 1997; Theberge, 2002). Sport matters in the way it draws us in to consume regional, national and global spectacles thereby capitalising on our desire to win and by default, increasing the power of the spectacle (Abdel-Shehid and Kalman-Lamb, 2011). Abdel-Shehid and Kalman-Lamb (2011: 134) suggest that if we critically interrogate the meanings associated with winning and diminish its importance we might be better placed to understand how sport, particularly male elite sport, influences the hyper-masculine construction of leadership at the macro-societal-level and at the meso-level of business organisations.

In NZ, Rugby Union is positioned as the national sport. As a ‘man’s’ game (although played by women), rugby personifies a hyper-masculine sporting culture. This same analogy could be applied to other countries that worship a sport such as American football in the United States. Sinclair (2013: 17) notes the importance of ‘scholarly processes of deconstruction, critique and problematising assumptions about leadership and the distortions they produce’. Improving the status quo is a significant challenge because to do so we must eliminate the problems associated with a hyper-masculinised, heroic view of leadership and co-create alterative conceptions of leadership (Sinclair, 2013; Uhl-Bien, 2006). If we consider the rapid transformation of elite sport to a global, media driven business, a commodity, a place of work and an instrument to stimulate economic growth and collective national pride, research seeking answers to where power and privilege lie in many other nation states cannot ignore sport. The relationships between sports, gender and leadership utilising a multi-level lens does deserve more scholarly attention.

We rest our case with the following quote from an opinion piece in a nationally distributed newspaper in NZ that may resonate with readers from other parts of the globe:

We don’t look up to our politicians, there aren’t any wars so we look to sport to bring us up … it is strange that despite the brilliance of Valerie Adams, Lydia Ko and Lisa Carrington [individual NZ world class athletes] and all the other wondrous women of this country, the sporting narrative has always demanded a man to be the redeeming hero. (Reason, 2015: B3)

Sport is anything but benign or irrelevant when it comes to understanding gender and leadership.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: The lead author acknowledges the funding received from the Royal Society of New Zealand, Marsden Fund.

Notes

Author biographies

Dr Irene Ryan is a Senior Lecturer in the Business and Law Faculty, AUT University, Auckland, New Zealand. Inspired by feminist research in management, leadership and organisational studies, her current research interests revolve around gendered practices of leadership in sport organisations, diversity and careers. Her interest in the ways that sport can reveal what is often invisible in other contexts has been driven by her experiences as an ageing competitive sport participant and roles in sport governance. See more at:

Associate Professor Geoff Dickson lectures in the area of Sport Management and is also Associate Director – New Zealand Tourism Research Institute. His specific research interests are in the areas of inter-organisational relationships and sport governance, sport and event tourism, event leveraging/legacies and ambush marketing, sponsorship and consumer behaviour. An active participant and administrator, Geoff has always considered himself somewhat sensitive to gender issues but can now identify instances where he has been part of the ‘problem’. He is now an outspoken advocate for improved gender equity within NZ golf clubs. See more at:

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