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Most grass-roots rugby clubs in England are small businesses, which are mostly led by volunteers. The Leadership Academy developed by the Rugby Football Union (RFU) has sought to improve the effectiveness of these leaders for the past ten years. The aim was to make clubs more effective and sustainable, so they could gain maximum benefit from public interest in rugby following the Rugby World Cup. The purpose of this paper is to document the evolution of this unique training programme with emphasis on three key improvements that were identified during this ten-year period: content progression, tutor development and mentor investment.

Every year since the Leadership Academy programme began in 2005, feedback has been sought from the candidates through written evaluations to identify improvements to the programme. These improvements are then implemented for the following season. A formal external programme evaluation has also been carried out, as well as observations from the RFU programme sponsor – RFU Club Management and Governance Manager. All of these inputs are analysed to assess the effectiveness of the Leadership Academy in developing community rugby club leaders.

The results showed that the continual improvement of the Leadership Academy enhanced the experience of the candidates who attended in subsequent years. Leaders gained strategic insights, built stronger local relationships, and improved confidence levels.

The implications of these findings are relevant for others who design and deliver training programmes. The use of reflection and a continuous improvement cycle should play a role in all long-term training programmes so that learning can be applied to continually enhance the programme for future candidates.

The findings from this paper provide useful input for any other organisations that has a volunteer workforce or sports governing bodies that want to implement a leadership programme over a number of years to improve the effectiveness of their current or future leaders.

The purpose of this paper is to explore what training professionals can learn from motor sport driving instructors by modelling how they provide instruction to novices in high-performance vehicles during experience days at Silverstone Race Circuit, England.

Using neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) modelling techniques, three instructors were interviewed about how they provide effective instruction. The results highlight their cognitive and behavioural patterns that enable them to achieve high levels of performance in a high-risk environment.

The results highlighted how instructors are highly effective in being able to put a novice driver at ease prior to driving; and in communicating effectively with the novice driver in-car whilst on the circuit, so that they achieve more than they imagined was possible.

Whilst the researcher had the opportunity to experience being driven around a race circuit with one of the instructors to get a sense of the environment being described, there was not the chance to observe the instructor “in action” with novice drivers at the wheel.

The key implication is the importance of the pre-event stage of a training course that provides the opportunity for an instructor to gauge the learners and build trust.

This paper provides originality in how it explores the cognitive and behavioural aspects of delivering instruction in an environment that can be translated into the workplace.

As training professionals, it is likely that there are many occasions where they have to step into unfamiliar environments and deliver highly effective results. So the importance of understanding the factors that influence how individuals respond to uncertainty should not be underestimated. The purpose of this paper is to use two well‐known models (the Johari window and the change curve) to explore this issue and consider how to develop an effective mindset and behaviour when entering unknown or unfamiliar environments at work.

The framework was designed in order to deliver a workshop on change for an academic audience, and bring together two unrelated concepts.

Mindset is the critical element to pay attention to when entering an unknown environment, as it drives behaviour.

Trainers should be cognisant of their own beliefs and mindset and recognise how they can help or interfere with how they perform at work.

This is original research bringing together these two models.

Community rugby clubs are now becoming small businesses, which are mostly led by volunteers. This paper aims to document a case study on the Leadership Academy developed by the Rugby Football Union to improve the effectiveness of community rugby club leaders.

The programme content is explained, and written evaluations and observations analysed to assess the effectiveness of the Leadership Academy as a tool in helping to develop the community rugby club leaders.

The results showed that the Leadership Academy helped the leaders to build stronger local relationships with other rugby clubs and to improve confidence levels. These outcomes are also factors that help small business owners become more effective as leaders.

The findings from this paper provide useful input for any other organisations or governing bodies that want to improve the effectiveness of their current or future leaders.

In the training business people face tough situations at times. It could be managing a group of difficult people on a training course, delivering a presentation to 500 people or addressing a conflict situation with colleagues. So what strategies should individuals use to manage stressful situations and focus on success rather than failure? The author has faced many challenging situations in the Arctic, as well as in business and she shares her thoughts on three techniques to help maintain high levels of performance.

IT is always something of an embarrassment for a West German librarian to address his British colleagues on the problems of public libraries. What is there of interest in a system which in almost every respect is years behind the development of the English libraries? When I begin to think along these lines of the considerable and, indeed, natural role which the library plays in British society (almost a traumatic experience for a German librarian), then the inequalities of the situation become particularly clear. Even though there are many historical and political causes for this state of affairs, it is still impossible for any correspondent to free himself of a certain psychological handicap.

Now well into the 21st century, the world’s most powerful organizations’ highest executive levels and boards of directors still fail to represent a diverse collection of people shaped by unique social identity dimensions according to age, class, culture, ethnicity, faith/spirituality, gender, physical/psychological ability, sexual orientation, and more. Offered in this book is an investigation into why a homophily framework, or a similarity-attraction hypothesis, continues to perpetuate leadership by predominantly Caucasian/White males and reinforces barriers that keep qualified people possessing a multiplicity of social identity dimensions from achieving their full human potential.

To understand interactive processes through which discrimination is reproduced in the workplace, social identity theorists explore connections between ways that people create social identity and that organizations become socially constructed. Social identity theory explains how people seek to develop oneness with groups that help them to develop and/or to enhance positive self-esteem – and to better understand how people develop notions of high-status ingroups and low-status outgroups. Both of these frameworks are central to this book’s attention to difference in organizations. Difference is positioned as a positive advance in organizational dynamics; advocating respect and appreciation for multiple and intersecting social identities – not for profitability and other business case reasons – but because it is morally justified to eradicate inequitable and exclusionary practices in organizations. This book offers an introduction to doing difference research by introducing a number of theoretical underpinnings, addressing methodological challenges, and presenting a wide cross-section of numerous bodies of literature which have been attending to difference work. Chapter 1 is divided into subthemes of: applying social identity theory, emphasizing the “center” and the “margin,” managing organizational climate, and avoiding business case thinking and other flawed models by advocating for real diversity.

Despite organizational policies aimed at harassment prevention, harassment based on gender and ethnicity remains pervasive in places of work. Although previous research has identified other antecedents such as harassment climate, the purpose of this paper is to consider whether a climate of respect leads to reductions in identity-based harassment.

In a military sample of active duty men and women (Study 1) and a sample of working adults (Study 2), the authors use survey methods to test whether a climate of respect predicts the occurrence of two forms of identity-based abuse: sexual harassment (Study 1) and ethnic harassment (Study 2).

The authors find that a climate of respect uniquely predicts harassment based on sex and ethnicity, above and beyond effects of climate for harassment.

These results suggest that, while traditional harassment prevention efforts remain important for deterring identity-based harassment, promotion of a respectful work environment is also an effective tool.

Provides a review of the position of women in management in a number of countries. Describes how in almost all countries, management positions are dominated by men. Concludes that, although many similarities were found in women’s work experience across cultures, cultural factors accounted for the unique experiences of women in a given country.