5.3 Leadership in Sport

• Leadership - An individual having enough influence over the behaviour of others to motivate them to follow the individual's own set of goals.
• Leader examples: Captain, manager, director, coach, physiotherapist and a team sports psychologist.
• Good leaders can motivate others and give focus or direction to attaining goals such as success and enjoyment in sport.
• Effective Leadership - Affects performance of individuals and teams in all sports. This makes it important in influencing behaviour in sport. These team captains, managers and coaches all need leadership qualities.
• Barrow (1977) Leadership - 'The behavioural process influencing individuals and groups towards a set goal'.
• Leadership involves personal relationships and affects the motivation of individuals and groups.
• An effective leader have certain qualities that ensure effectiveness.
• • Good communication skills
• • High motivation
• • Enthusiasm can affect motivation and performance
• • Having a clear goal or vision of what needs to be achieved
• • Empathy is the ability to put yourself in the position of others to understand how they feel
• • Being good at the sport/having comprehensive knowledge of the sport
• • Charisma is a quality that is hard to ignore as they have a certain 'presence' and great powers of persuasion
• These qualities could be learned and some could be innate/natural.
• Emergent Leaders - Come within the group because they are skilful or because the team has selected them.
• Prescribed Leaders - Appointed to a team from an external source.
• Emergent leaders(advantages) can win over the 'hearts and minds' of the team because they are recognised as being one of their own.
• Prescribed leaders (advantages) are more objective and bring a 'fresh pair of eyes' to the team which could implement more creative strategies. They often have more authority/power that has been given to them.
• Emergent leaders (disadvantages) however, they may lack objectivity and have their own friendships within the group that might colour their judgements e.g. team selections.
• Prescribed leaders (disadvantages) however, could be seen as a unknown and potentially threatening 'outsider'. They also don't share and aren't aware of the teams culture/way of working or friendship groups which may delay effective decision making.
• Leadership styles have been identified and divided into 3 styles: autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire.
• Autocratic - Task orientated and more dictatorial meaning they have commanding and directing approaches which show little interest in the individuals within the group.
• Democratic - A person orientated leader who values the views of other group members meaning they share decisions and show a good deal of interest in the individuals within the group.
• Laissez-faire - They make very few decisions and give little feedback so the individual group members mostly do as they wish.
• Autocratic style of leadership have a pre-determined goal that they make decisions towards that concentrate on the job and is concerned with the end product e.g. winning and performance.
• The autocratic style is used when discipline and control are needed or when hostile groups are involved. Also if there is a lack of time meaning it is often preferred by novice performers (cognitive stage), team players and males generally. Used when situations are dangerous or when there is a clear task, this style is best.
• Democratic style of leadership is when the leader is more concerned with interpersonal relations and is more person/social orientated so they invite contributions and shares the decision making.
• The democratic style is used when group members wish or are able to participate in decision-making. This style suite advanced performers who have the knowledge to contribute and to motivate group members e.g. a 'friendly' match as the task demands greater interpersonal communication especially if the leader is well known within the group (emergent). It is also generally preferred by females when more time is available and the situation is not dangerous. It is often suited to small teams or individual sports.
• Laissez-faire style of leadership is when they have no direct influence on group members as the leader takes a back seat to let the group make their own decisions.
• The laissez-faire style is used for high-level performers/elite athletes as it helps develop creativity for team members. The leaders have full trust in members capabilities so it is suitable if the task involves individual decision making or the leader is creating an assessment situation e.g. assessing group members. It may also be adopted if the leader is incompetent or unable to employ any other style of leadership.
• Applying leadership styles means not relying too heavily just one style permanently.
• Weakness of the autocratic style - It may result in hostility and deter athletes from taking on any personal responsibilities in situations where the coach isn't present.
• Weakness of the democratic approach - May result in less work being done but will increase the positive effects of interaction.
• Weakness of the laissez-faire style - It should be actively avoided in most situations but it does encourage more creativity among team members and also gives them more responsibility.
• Crust (2006) - Reviews leadership in sport e.g. novice athletes prefer rewards where as experts prefer democratic coaching. Teams prefer more training/instructions in the autocratic style where as individual sports prefer social and democratic coaching. Males prefer autocratic unlike females who prefer the democratic style. Older athletes prefer democratic style due to the social support but all athletes of all ages value rewards equally.
• Theories of leadership explores how people become leaders in sport through psychology. These are 3 theories in relation to this: trait perspective, social learning theory and interactionist theory.
• Trait Theory - This view claims that leaders have a genetic disposition/innate characteristics that show leader qualities ('great leaders are born, not made').
• The trait perspective shows that leadership traits are stable and enduring so can be generalised across different situations, so people are leaders in whatever situation they find themselves in. Doesn't take the environment into account.
• Weaknesses of the trait theory - People in their sport tend to be quite specific in their skills, depending on their specific situation (leadership is not generalised by certain characteristics that make them effective, it's not wholly an innate disposition). The trait perspective assumes that certain traits produce certain patterns of behaviour, these patterns are consistent across different situations and people are born with these leadership traits.