AKWOS Women’s Sports Leadership Academy

Rationale for the Establishment of the AKWOS Women’s Sports Leadership Academy

Over the years, there has been under-representation and lack of development opportunities for women leaders in sport which has been identified in Rwanda, Africa and afar. Despite a variety of efforts to remedy the situation, sport leadership continues to be male- and masculine-dominated. The AKWOS Women’s Sports Leadership Academy will be created to cultivate personal, community, national, and international development objectives to be achieved by women in Rwanda.

Our vision for the academy is to empower women to be great leaders and our leadership philosophy can be summarized in this simple model

There are three key objectives for AKWOS Women’s Sports Leadership Academy programmes that support the further development of participants in the following:

  • Leadership competencies – supporting female leaders to further develop their leadership competencies or behaviors, consolidate their own leadership style, empower them to be who they want to be and navigate the challenges that are part of leading an organization.
  • Confidence – encouraging female leaders to identify their strengths, pursue goals, take opportunities and progress their career path. They will be confident to champion themselves and others going forward.
  • Strengthen Women leadership Positions –such as women coaches, referees, administrators, physical educators, physiotherapists, team managers, media professionals among others.

Specifically, AKWOS Women’s Sports Leadership Academy will also support the participants to:

  • Be aware of their impact on other
  • Be able to communicate more effectively
  • Develop greater self-awareness
  • Produce a Personal Development Plan with clear goals
  • Develop career strategies
  • Participate in regular networking
  • Improve intercultural understanding
  • Gain better knowledge and understanding of the global women and sport movement and the relevance to them
  • Overcome concealed challenges faced by women in sports such as Gender-Based Violence
  • Address emerging and outstanding global challenges such as global warming and climate change.

 

AKWOS Women’s Sports Leadership Academy Leadership Competency Framework.

AKWOS will provide a unique learning environment that supports each participant to further develop their leadership behaviors that research has shown to be critical to becoming an outstanding leader.

What we know is the performance often changes when under pressure so the focus at AKWOS is on the main behaviors to develop in three areas of focus and always with the overriding issue of a leader’s performance in a pressured environment

For each area of focus AKWOS has identified some critical behavior as follows:

  • Drives self

For example – awareness of own behavior on others; how to reflect on own performance; managing own wellbeing; embracing uncomfortable situations; seeks out learning opportunities; how to be resilient; accepting challenging feedback.

  • Develops excellence

For example – has a clear leadership philosophy; is a role model with leadership behavior; applies principles of coaching to help others develop; translates strategic direction into effective plans; makes tough decisions; develops a high-performing culture; empowers others to operate at their best. 

  • Executes effectively

For example – builds strategic relationships; connects with a range of networks; brings people with complementary skills together; consults with widely varied audience; leads meaningful communication to share vision; expresses thoughts, feeling and ideas in a clear succinct and compelling manner.

AKWOS will train and mentor young women to become accomplished local coaches to identify talent, select the best sporting young girls , and develop them into future champions. They offer sports camps and clinics for all athletes to learn from the best coaches and encourage participation in sports. We believe in the potential of sports as it plays a key role in personal, community, national and international development objectives.