Search

Some sports coaches believe that empowering the players in their team can undermine their own leadership status. In business organizations, however, recent theorizing on shared leadership refutes this belief by suggesting that the most effective leaders engage in behaviors to strengthen the leadership qualities of their followers. The present study sought to investigate this perspective within sports teams. Social network analyses were performed to study the leadership structure within a stratified sample (across sport, gender, and competitive level) of 64 sports teams, encompassing 64 coaches and 776 players. Next, we related the perceived leadership quality of the coaches to specific characteristics of their teams’ leadership networks. The results highlighted that the perceived leadership quality of the coach was positively related to the density of the team’s leadership networks (i.e., the average leadership qualities of all players). This finding held for the four leadership roles of task, motivational, social, and external leadership. This outcome suggests that the best coaches are the ones who adopt a shared leadership approach and who strengthen the leadership quality of their players. However, our findings also suggest that the perceptions of coaches and players on the team’s leadership dynamics often differ. Consequently, coaches could benefit from the analysis of leadership networks to gain insight in their team’s leadership structure. Based on this knowledge, coaches could then correctly identify the best leaders in the team, as perceived by the other team members. By creating and developing these leaders, coaches then become better leaders themselves. ispartof: JOURNAL OF APPLIED SPORT PSYCHOLOGY vol:32 issue:1 pages:5-27 status: published

The purpose of this investigation was to explore the nature of pre-performance routines used in golf. Six male international golfers were recruited to participate in this study (Age M = 29; handicap M = +1.5; years playing golf M = 16.25). The golfers were interviewed individually to gain an understanding of participants’ perceptions of the nature and function of their pre-performance routines. The data were thematically analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. In total, 9 super-ordinate themes emerged: allocation of attention, psychological skills, shot selection, routine mind set, routine composition, compulsive behaviors, routine evolution/application, top players, and moderating factors. Results suggest that the development of routines is dependent on the personality, coping resources, and situational appraisals of each individual performer.