Developing rugby club leaders is a long game

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.