TY - JOUR AB - Purpose This study explores the positive and negative factors influencing transformational learning experiences of female leaders in women’s leadership development programmes in sports and examines the differences in learning/change factors cited by those who successfully addressed them and those who failed.Design/methodology/approach The study adopted a qualitative research method, using phone interviews with women leaders in a sports setting.Findings The findings revealed that participants presented clear progress in terms of leadership skills, but they failed to report whether this progress can be achieved if the programme is running within a specific sports organisation, targeting a specific kind of sports leadership in the long term.Research limitations/implications There were a number of limitations for this study, e.g. selection of participants, sample size, exploratory methodology, which affected generalising the findings to other sports organisations or other countries.Originality/value The study provides a starting point for the exploration of the effectiveness of women leadership development programmes and how designers can evaluate the outcome of such initiatives in the UK. VL - 41 IS - 5 SN - 2046-9012 DO - 10.1108/EJTD-12-2016-0085 UR - https://doi.org/10.1108/EJTD-12-2016-0085 AU - Megheirkouni Majd AU - Roomi Muhammad Azam PY - 2017 Y1 - 2017/01/01 TI - Women’s leadership development in sport settings: Factors influencing the transformational learning experience of female managers T2 - European Journal of Training and Development PB - Emerald Publishing Limited SP - 467 EP - 484 Y2 - 2024/04/23 ER -