Qualitative evaluations of women’s leadership programs: a global, multi-sector systematic review

ABSTRACT Objective The contribution of women’s leadership programs to gender change in organisations is controversial, and evidence of programs’ effectiveness is siloed across countries, sectors and industries. This systematic review aimed to provide a summary of current global efforts to evaluate women’s leadership programs. Method A systematic review protocol was registered with Open Science Framework prior to data extraction. Eight databases from multidisciplinary fields including (but not limited to) behavioural, social, physical, health and life sciences, management and business, and gender and women’s studies were searched for academic papers examining the outcomes of women’s leadership programs. Twenty-four studies were appraised for methodological quality using Joanna Briggs Institute guidelines and 16 studies (11 peer reviewed articles and five theses) were included in the review. Results Data were synthesized using an updated Kirkpatrick typology with seven categories used to classify evaluation outcomes. Subjective outcome levels were addressed more frequently than objective levels. Promotion to a leadership position was the sole objective outcome addressed, but methodological limitations of the included studies mitigate a link between programs and women’s career advancement. Conclusions Currently, the global evidence of women’s leadership programs’ impact on individuals and organisations is inconclusive. This systematic review emphasises the need for enhanced methodological and theoretical rigour to guide the development of future women’s leadership programs and their evaluation. Key Points What is already known about this topic: Reasons for the persistent underrepresentation of women in leadership are multiple and complex, and women leaders face both structural and individual barriers in their efforts to ascend to the top levels of organisations. Research has largely moved away from a micro-level focus on how best to assimilate women into existing, male-dominated workplaces, to a focus on dismantling structural barriers to women’s leadership such as meso-level organisational policies and practices and macro-level national and societal factors such as culture and legislation. In practice, however, micro-level strategies to address gender imbalance in leadership are frequently employed, and there is much debate regarding their capacity to contribute to gender change in organisations. Our knowledge about the impact of women’s leadership programs is limited and fragmented, as is our understanding of how this impact is assessed. What this paper adds: This systematic review is the first to map the quality and nature of women’s leadership program evaluations globally, demonstrating the applicability of a systematic review methodology to leadership, management, and organisational psychology research. Our paper challenges the premise that individual level strategies can affect organisational and cultural change by examining the evidence of the effectiveness of micro-level approaches to women’s leadership development. The paper includes practical recommendations to advance women’s leadership program evaluation practice and research, emphasising the need for enhanced methodological rigour and realistic expectations regarding both the program and the evaluation.