Following the Miami Marlins most successful season as an organization in roughly 20 years, a major component of that success, General Manager Kim Ng, found her leadership role had suddenly been undermined by the team as they announced plans to hire a president of baseball operations to serve over her. As a result, Kim Ng has now stepped down as the Marlin’s GM, citing a misalignment with the future organization of the baseball operations department and owner Bruce Sherman’s vision for that structure moving forward.

While the organizational decision making by the Marlins is shocking given how impactful Kim Ng has been in the team’s newfound success, the act of undermining or devaluing women in sport leadership is not. Biases and obstacles faced by women in their attempts to ascend to and remain within sport leadership roles have deeply institutionalized roots. Long-standing gender stereotypes of ‘who’ is the best fit in a position of leadership have historically favored men, who have always occupied these roles at much higher rates than women. Gender stereotypes in the workplace often assume that men inherently maintain the qualities necessary to lead others, with little evidence beyond precedent to support this assumption as factual.

Instead, much of the recent research on leader quality has uncovered that women often maintain higher ratings for leadership skills than do men. Several analyses published in the Harvard Business Review report that women in leadership positions are perceived by their employees as more competent than their male counterparts. Specifically, women leaders are consistently rated higher across competencies such as taking initiative, acting with resilience, practicing self-development, driving for results, and displaying high integrity and honesty.

Research specific to the sport industry has uncovered similar results for the leadership position of head coach at both the NCAA D1 level and within professional women’s sport. Findings from these studies have revealed that women and men head coaches are both just as effective at developing the players on their rosters and producing successful teams. Given the evidence that supports the hiring of women into roles of leadership, the disconnect in realizing their abilities, even when an organization such as the Marlin’s experiences success, continues based on powerful implicit bias.

Once women such as Kim Ng do reach a position of leadership and find success in that role, they are also much more likely to experience penalties for their success. Previous research on the topic of leadership success has uncovered several damaging outcomes faced specifically by women in these roles. For example, when women are acknowledged to be successful, they are subsequently less liked and devalued for their efforts when compared to similarly successful men. Specific to an industry such as sport, women face these negative reactions much more frequently if they work within a traditionally male-dominated environment.

The sport industry has a long way to go in achieving higher rates of equity across leadership positions, but the evidence is clear, women are successful at leading individuals and organizations within sport. The barriers and biases that continue to plague the advancement and sustainment of women as leaders across sport are complex and often highly implicit, making these opinions even more difficult to initially recognize and challenge. That being said, Kim Ng will not be out of a position for long, and it is clear how well-respected she is across Major League Baseball, even if executives at the Marlins failed to recognize her tremendous impacts over the past three years.