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After working her way through the ranks, Kristin Gillette now serves as the Park University director of athletics — and she credits Women Leaders in Sports for helping her get there.
“Had it not been a part of my life and me being a part of that organization, you would not be talking to me today,” Gillette said Wednesday at the Breckon Sports Center in Parkville.
Women Leaders in Sports is a professional-development organization based in Kansas City that helps empower and connect women in or seeking leadership across the sports landscape.
“We like to say we help women get in the room, we help them have influence while they're in the room, and then we help them and coach them to stay in the room,” Women Leaders in Sports CEO Patti Phillips said.
Gillette is grateful for the guidance.
“Representing the students and providing assistance to coaches to be their best, to have banners hanging of their accomplishments, getting them to graduation — there's something new every day that keeps it intriguing and exciting in this world,” she said.
Gillette first encountered Women Leaders in Sports — which was called the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators, or NACWAA — as a student at William Jewell College in the early 2000s and she’s remained among the organization’s 6,200 members nationwide.
“We're the network, we're the community, we're the leadership organization, we're the energy sometimes, we're the support, the champions,” Phillips, who began her career as a coach before transitioning to C suite jobs in athletics, said. “We want to make sure that women are represented and leading in these really important roles in our society, the business of sports, which is changing cultures all the time.”
As women’s sports continue to gain acceptance and an audience, the aim is to ensure that women have a voice behind the scenes as well.
“We bring a lot of great ideas to the table and I find that we do this,” Gillette said, pulling her sleeves to her elbows. “We roll up our sleeves, and we get after it.”
Phillips said women bring some key qualities to the table that set them apart.
“They're risk-takers, but with collaboration, they're great communicators, they have great empathy,” she said. “These are generalities, obviously, but women do have skills that make them great leaders.”
The connections Gillette has made with other women in similar college administrator roles have proven invaluable.
“We contact each other and just say, ‘Hey, what do you do about this? How are you doing? Can you believe this?’” Gillette said. “You need to have it. Otherwise, it's a grind. It's hard to survive. ... From the female perspective, in a space where there's not a lot of us, it sure helps to be able to link arms and just say, ‘How are you doing?’”
It’s not about excluding men, who have dominated roles in these spaces since they started.
“We're saying it's not an either/or, it's an add-on,” Phillips said. “It's like this is an upgrade to have diversity around the table to make all of those decisions.”
It’s about providing more women with the skills and the confidence to take on leaderships roles in sports.
“We want women to be in every role that they choose to be in,” Phillips said. “But how cultures change, communities change, workplaces change is when women are in the room having influence on decisions that are being made.”
Women attend games, women watch games, women buy merchandise, so there’s a great business case to have women be part of the decision-making process.
“We always say you have to see it to think you can be it, but we also believe and know, as the research bears out, that women are great leaders and that they bring skills to the table that actually help drive business results,” Phillips said.
With women’s sports surging in popularity, Women Leaders in Sports hope to see a surge in women in key roles atop sports empires as well.
“We want these female athletes that everyone is talking about to have an opportunity to work and lead in the sports that they have impacted in so many ways,” Phillips said. “Are the views changing? Yes. Have the numbers reflected that to the extent that we want? No, but these are cultural shifts that we want to happen — and they don't happen overnight. It's like a tsunami.”
One centered in Kansas City, which is ground zero in the effort to makes sure women are ready as perceptions change and hiring practices shift.
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