Leadership in sport management

There is little doubt that effective leadership is considered essential to the functioning of any organisation. However, many of us still seem to struggle with what a leader is specifically required to do to be effective. Leaders often have their attention dispersed over a range of both strategic and operational imperatives. Leaders of organisations therefore need to have the capacity to focus on and address multiple divergent issues simultaneously. They must have a grasp of both the human and the functional or technical side of the organisation. They need to think in the moment, as well as the future. They need to consider both the internal and the external environment of the organisation, the culture, the climate. Still, despite these complexities, leadership is perfectly simple and yet obviously also incredibly complicated. In essence it is about the application of power to influence others, in order to achieve the desired goals and outcomes of the organisation. Thus, a leader’s skills, and how they approach this task, are vital. For the leader of a sport organisation, the basic tenet of the role is no different. Sport is the context, and may slightly influence approaches, but ultimately the central components of leadership are universal. This chapter focuses on the concept of leadership at the broader level, specifically how some of the major contemporary leadership theories pertain to sport organisations. Refereed/Peer-reviewed