Fostering Organizational Learning Across the Canadian Sport System Through Leadership and Mentorship Development

Jennifer Walinga received a grant from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to explore the leadership and mentorship development program Own the Podium.

Humanity is increasingly facing political, environmental, cultural and organizational leadership challenges. Sport acts as a rich environment for the study of optimal human, team, and organizational performance and thus has the potential to offer blueprints for effective human and social leadership processes, structures, and systems. Democratic processes, leadership, and communication are important for sport governance and organizational health and performance, but the conceptual interrelationships are poorly understood (Kikulis et al., 1992; Kikulis, Slack, & Hinings, 1995). Values-Based leadership offers a positive model for sport by encouraging innovation through collaboration, agency through clarity, and growth through opportunity resulting in increased productivity by the organization (Chammas & Hernandez, 2019; Walinga & Rowe, 2013). High performance sport offers a unique opportunity to study the intersection between human capacity and organizational processes, structures and systems; therefore, the goal of the study is to inform the design of effective Values Based leadership and mentorship development programming for sport leaders from across the network of Canadian sport institutes and centers.
In 2020, the LEAD leadership and mentorship development program was introduced by Own the Podium, Canada's high performance sport funding and technical support agency. Own the Podium offers support to National Sport Organizations through integrated teams of sport science, medicine, management professionals accessed through Canada's seven sport institutes and centers. As well, Own the Podium strives to offer sport innovation, research and development. LEAD was designed to equip sport science leaders with the leadership knowledge, skills, and practice to foster a high-performance culture, enhance the daily training environment, and contribute to optimal performance in sport, not only in terms of sport performance outcomes, but also in terms of optimal organizational learning and practice. In particular, LEAD works to educate sport science leaders in individual, team and organizational health and performance skills including mentoring, communication, collaboration, culture building, and change facilitation. It is the larger goal of this study to trace the impact of leadership development on organizational learning and effectiveness in sport.
This study applies a Participatory Action Research (PAR) framework to review and refine the LEAD program as a model for leadership development across the sport system in Canada. In this way, OTP and the Canadian sport institutes and centers will act as both partners and co-researchers in the study aiming to:
1. Understand the leadership needs, challenges, strengths, and opportunities within the Canadian sport system.
2. Trace the effects of the LEAD leadership development program on key leadership, mentorship and organizational healthindicators across the Canadian sport institutes and centers
3. Recommend refinements to the LEAD leadership and mentorship development program.
4. Build knowledge of Values-Based leadership and mentorship best practice and development strategies within the Canadian sport system for managing change efforts, addressing inequalities, and building personal and operational effectiveness andresilience amidst challenges of uncertainty, pressure, and constraint in real time and into the future.
5. Share knowledge gained from the research with sport practitioners and partners across the Canadian sport system (SportCanada, Canadian Olympic Committee, Canadian Paralympic Committee, Sport for Life, Canadian Center for Ethics in Sport, Coaching Association of Canada, Canadian Women and Sport), the wider public sector, and relevant academic audiences.