It has been proven time and time again that youth sports participation helps develop leadership skills and qualities in young people. But since leadership traits are stereotypically associated with masculinity, what does this mean as it relates to young women athletes and their takeaways from youth sports? A new study from Temple University’s School of Sport, Tourism and Hospitality Management (STHM) seeks to find that answer. 

“We really wanted to take a close look at how young women athletes perceive leadership. We wanted to see what types of traits they saw as prototypical of a leader, and something that was really interesting is the female athletes who we spoke with identified more agentic or masculine traits, such as assertiveness or independence, as being indicative of leadership,” said Elizabeth Taylor, an associate professor at STHM and a co-author of the study. 

The study, which was recently published in the scholarly journal Leisure Sciences, “Exploring Perceptions of Prototypical Leadership and Gender Encoding Bias among Aspiring Female Athletes,” utilizes a qualitative approach to look at young women’s perceptions of leadership based on their experiences as athletes. 

In addition to Taylor, the piece was co-authored by Gareth Jones, who is also an associate professor at STHM. Other co-authors for the piece include Katherine Sveinson of the University of Massachusetts – Amherst, Christine Wegner, STHM ’16, of the University of Florida and Caroline Heffernan, STHM ’14, of Northwestern University. 

As part of the study, Taylor, Jones and their colleagues hosted focus groups with 90 teenage woman athletes, all between the ages of 14 to 18. One of the overall takeaways from the research is that young women are comfortable in engaging in leadership traits because of their athletic experience, but the settings for when they feel comfortable displaying those traits is key. 

“The participants shared how many of the traits that you might suspect from a leader—assertiveness, charisma and things like that—are acceptable in sports, but even then, there are limits,” Jones said. “So, for instance, participants shared how men’s games are called differently than women’s games; referees will let men be a bit more physical. But when women athletes do the same, they will get whistled, which shows there is this unconscious bias in play for young women when they express those traits.” 

“For young girls playing sports, it really becomes this balancing act for when they can engage in these traits, and when they have to mask those leadership characteristics that have brought them success on the court,” Taylor added. 

Additionally, while both Taylor and Jones acknowledge that women sports have grown significantly in recent years, with the tremendous growth of the WNBA serving as the latest example, they note how this study illustrates how women athletes face an uphill battle, even in youth sports. Additionally, the authors note that one thing that cannot be determined is how many young women abandoned their sport before their teenage years because of these pressures. 

“What is so telling is that the study showed how young women athletes recognize that a trait like assertiveness is important to being a leader. But, even as a teenager, they are already taking steps to soften their assertiveness, depending on the context so that they don't potentially come across the wrong way. It is unfortunate that they must deal with that,” Jones said. 

As far as real-world implications for the study, both Taylor and Jones emphasize that it really illustrates the need for high-quality athletic coaches, especially at the youth level. 

“I think that this study really has strong implications in thinking about what we know about gender and coaching,” Taylor said. “The majority of sport coaches are men, and so how does that impact the way that that our young female athletes are being spoken to? Coach education is another area that we commonly talk about, but I don't know that we do a great job of educating our coaches on a lot of things. This study shows that we need to do better there.”