The coaching revolution
Te Hā paitanga is enabling women to break boundaries and reshape sports leadership in New Zealand
The pursuit of excellence knows no gender in professional sport, yet female coaches have long faced an uphill battle towards recognition and success.
But a groundbreaking initiative, Te Hā paitanga, is rewriting the playbook, one that embraces the richness of New Zealand’s cultural tapestry and recognises that diversity isn’t just a buzzword — it’s the key to unlocking untapped potential in the coaching realm.
Te Hāpaitanga — the act of elevating, lifting and empowering — emerges as a beacon of change in the professional coaching landscape, challenging traditional norms and fostering diversity.
At its core, Te Hāpaitanga isn’t just about training coaches or growing the talent pool of female coaches, it’s about cultivating a community of resilient, empowered women ready to tackle head-on the challenges of high-performance sport.
Its objectives are as ambitious as they are noble, seeking to dismantle the barriers that have long hindered female coaches from reaching their full potential.
From one-on-one mentorship with seasoned high-performance coaches to immersive residential workshops, the 18-month holistic approach is designed to foster growth, accelerate development and forge lasting connections within a community of like-minded coaches.
Importantly, Te Hāpaitanga is inclusive, welcoming women from diverse backgrounds, including former athletes, mothers, and all ethnicities to apply.
Born out of the Women in High Performance Sport (WHPS) pilot project, Te Hāpaitanga is not only reshaping the future of coaching in New Zealand, but paving the way for greater success on the international stage, according to High Performance Sport New Zealand’s (HPSNZ) head of high performance coaching Daryl Gibson, himself a former All Black.
“Often the barrier the women are facing to move forward [as coaches or managers] and contest positions at the highest level is experience,” Gibson said.
“I think for our aspiring women coaches, in rugby in particular, it’s going to take time to develop that experience and contest taking those positions.
“If I looked back at Super Rugby and the coaches when it went professional in 1996 compared to now and how coaching has evolved, it takes a lot of time. That’s the challenge.
“One of our goals is to increase the diversity of our coaching workforce, not only through gender and ethnicity, but the sheer volume of candidates and depth we have for different positions.
“We’re a small country, we don’t have a huge number of coaches and sports, so increasing the capability of our workforce and diversity of that is incredibly important.
“The competitive advantage of having people from different genders and ethnicities is the unique insights they provide and diversity of thought across the coaching team and programme. Making sure there’s a pathway for those people is important.”
Te Hāpaitanga emerges from a landscape where women’s voices and leadership in high performance sports were underrepresented.
In October 2018, then Minister for Sport and Recreation Grant Robertson announced $2.7 million to fund the WHPS pilot to help resolve the significant underrepresentation of females in sports leadership and coaching roles.
The first Te Hāpaitanga cohort started in September 2020 and included Jenny Armstrong (yachting), Temepara Bailey (netball), Mel Bosman (rugby), Lizzie Green (equestrian), Jonelle Quane (surf life saving), Whitney Hansen (rugby), Gemma Lewis (football), Kim Mickle (athletics), Palesa Semu (netball), Hannah Starnes (rowing), Laura Thompson (para-cycling), Maia Vink (football) Natalie Lawrence (football) and Kari Carswell (cricket).
“Female athletes make a massive contribution to New Zealand’s success on the international sporting stage, yet women remain significantly underrepresented in high performance leadership and coaching roles,” Robertson said at the time.
“The $2.7m being invested through HPSNZ seeks to change this by creating the right environment and opportunities for far greater representation of women in high-performance leadership and coaching positions.
“As a sector, and as a Government, we need to keep leading positive conversations around gender equity in sport, while also continuing to challenge poor behaviours and attitudes.”
The initial pilot was deemed a success, with 11 of the 14 women participating changing their roles or taking on more responsibility in their sport since the beginning of Te Hā paitanga.
At the time, only four women were in high-performance director roles across 48 national sporting organisations. That number has increased to 12 — or 27 per cent, which is just shy of the target outlined in the original HPSNZ 2023 strategy of 30 per cent as high-performance directors and coaches by 2028.
HPSNZ director of highperformance Steve Tew says the rewards will be properly reaped further down the line by the NSOs.
“We can provide the technical stuff a programme can deliver — education, confidence, testing, challenges — but we need the environment for people to go back into and evolve.
“My personal belief is that coaching has been a very competitive advantage for New Zealand for a long time. For some reason, we produce high-performance coaches across a range of sports that is disproportionate to our population. You only need to look at the influence of New
Zealanders around the world.
“This is one of the things I’ve been asked to explain around the world: How does New Zealand perform so well for its size?
“It’s a great environment, we’ve got a unique ethnic and cultural mix, but ultimately coaching is a critical component of any success story. If we get the coaching right, we give the athletes the chance to be the best we can be.”
Tew, a former New Zealand Rugby chief executive, acknowledges the programme’s role as a catalyst for change.
“Sport, I don’t think anyone pretends this hasn’t been the case, is largely the domain of men but we’re changing that and have seen a lot of progress in the last 10 to five years but there’s still work to be done.
“Sport mirrors the rest of society. A lot of people are very progressive and thinking ahead and knowing that diversity, be that around board tables and coaching tables, are a strength but there are others who are slower to come to that. If that’s happening in a broader society context, then it will happen in sport as well.
“Some of the old-fashioned views of the world still exist but we’re breaking down those barriers and the best way we can do that is to give women the opportunity for them to be successful.”
As the programme prepares to welcome its fourth cohort, the stories of its alumni serve as testaments to its impact. Through resilience, empowerment, and a commitment to diversity, Te Hāpaitanga is rewriting the playbook and paving the way for a future where women coaches thrive in high-performance sports. ● The next instalment of the series tomorrow shows how Te Ha¯ paitanga empowers and transforms its participants.
Sport, I don’t think anyone pretends this hasn’t been the case, is largely the domain of men but we’re changing that and have seen a lot of progress but there’s still work to be done. Steve Tew