Focused critique
One of the recent operations reported by Basketball Australia (2024) is the launch of the Indigenous Leadership Program. The program aims to develop basketball skills in young 14 17-year-old Indigenous girls, launched by Kulbardi and Bibbulmun fund and joined by Basketball Australia. This launch meets the needs of the community and empowers cultural sensitivity. The management of Basketball Australia ensures to address the cultural needs of the community through inclusivity and diversity, as the organisation provides training to the girls. This is a positive aspect of the management team of the organisation, as it fosters diversity and inclusion and looks forward to making culturally diverse people a part of their organisation (Dias et al., 2020). Moreover, the operation is also positively assessed from the aspects of leadership, as the organisation aims to lead a group of Indigenous girls and train them by providing workshops on time management skills, setting goals, resolving conflict and essential basketball rules and skills. Therefore, the organisation depicts practising leadership, as organisational leaders foster the development of employees through training and empowering them (Caday & Leovigildo, 2023). Therefore, these leadership practices imitated by the management of an organisation tend to have a positive impact on the newly joined members and motivate and encourage them to participate to their fullest as their basic needs are met (Ozkeser, 2019). However, on the other hand, Basketball Australia was claimed to have issues with diversity, as South Sundanese basketball players faced discrimination during basketball matches governed by Basketball Australia and Basketball Victoria (Watson & Ned O’Bryan, n.d.). It has been reported by Hums et al. (2023) that it is the responsibility of the sport’s governing body to ensure diversity, inclusion, ethics and equality while managing sports events. Similarly, it has also been reported by Ashikali et al. (2021) that the human resource management of public institutions or organisations must practice inclusivity, equality and diversity among team members as it impacts the overall organisational effectiveness. This imitates that, in one case, Basketball’s operation depicted a positive leadership approach as it considered inclusivity and trained Indigenous girls the basic life and basketball skills, however, on the other hand, the governance of the organisation was negatively criticised by South Sundanese players.
