Building career capital in policing in Australia through women's leadership programmes

PurposeThis paper highlights how career capital is accrued through three ways of knowing in a women’s leadership programme (WLP) in an Australian State Police Department. A shift in focus to building capability rather than addressing gaps in participants' abilities was enhanced through the unique use of sponsors and positive psychology interventions.Design/methodology/approachA longitudinal study, which comprised 31 semi-structured in-depth interviews and focus groups, and a survey with participants eight months after the interviews, assessed the impact of enhanced skills, connections and qualifications on extant role performance.FindingsThe WLP enhanced three key components of career capital.Originality/valueThe authors' study extends extant knowledge in seven key ways related to WLPs: (1) reaffirms the benefits for police, (2) developing or enhancing career capital, (3) accruing women’s career capital in policing, (4) pedagogical benefits for WLPs, (5) articulating outcomes of developing career capital, (6) the uniqueness of allocating sponsors and (7) extending empirical studies demonstrating synergies within the intelligent career framework.