leadership in sport

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A sport group is merely the collection of a number of

individuals and the leader is the most dominant individual

Richard FryerMSc Sport & Exercise Psychology

2012

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What am I going to conclude?

There has been too much focus on ‘The Coach’as being ‘The Leader’ and this seems to be an

oversimplification of what happens in sports groups.

More emphasis needs to be placed on the group andsituational or contextual factors

Distributed leadership offers some useful ideasabout where research could be focused in the future

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What is a group?

• A group comprises one or more people, involves interaction between people, demands an awareness of some form of common fate or goals, has a specific structure known to all members, and group norms.

– Hagger & Chatzisarantis (2005)

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What is leadership?

• Some definitions are about leadership as a directive role i.e.– The behaviour of an individual while he is involved in

directing group activities (Hemphill, 1949)

• Others define leadership as a social process i.e.– Leadership is a process of social influence in which

one person is able to enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task (Chemers, 1997)

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Is there a clear definition?

• Leadership as a concept has been researched and written about for generations.

• There still is no clear agreement or consensus about what it is or how to define ‘it’.

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Some common ground…

• Leadership seems to be required when individuals and/or groups have goals to achieve.

• Leadership seems to be about assisting in the pursuit of these goals, particularly through decision-making.

• Leadership theory and group theory appear to be very closely related.

• Leadership is therefore still a relevant topic for the sporting domain.

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What is it we want from individuals and/or groups in sport?

PERFORMANCE*OUTCOMES

* However this is defined e.g. winning, personal best

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A conceptual framework for the study of sport groups

GroupStructure

GroupCohesion

GroupProcesses

MemberAttributes

GroupEnvironment

IndividualOutcomes

TeamOutcomes

Carron & Hausenblas (1998)

Leadership relatedfactors

L

L L

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Team cohesion = better performance(or is that: better performance = team cohesion?)

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Factors influencing cohesion

Personal

Team

Leadership

Environmental

Carron (1982)

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The transformational leader

• Instils pride• Encourages members to go above and beyond• Promotes confidence in ability to achieve goals• Research mostly limited to individual followers rather

than teams – can create disproportional team conflict

InspirationalMotivation

IntellectualStimulation

IndividualisedConsideration

Bass & Avolio (1994)

IdealizedInfluence

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Transformational leaders in sport(The ‘Supercoach’)

Jose Mourinho Wayne Bennett Vince Lombardi

Graham Henry Alex Ferguson Jurgen Grobler

Football RugbyLeague

AmericanFootball

RugbyUnion

FootballRowing

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Multidimensional Model of Leadership (Chelladurai, 1990)

The MML proposes that group performance and member satisfaction are

dependent upon the congruency of required, preferred, and perceived

leader behaviours

REQUIREDBEHAVIOUR

OF SITUATION

COACHESPREFERREDBEHAVIOUR

COACHESPERCEIVEDBEHAVIOUR

Balanceof all 3

= satisfaction= performance

Antecedents

Characteristicsof the:

- Situation- Leader- Members ofthe group

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Transformational leadership skills for coaches (Chelladurai, 2007)

• Creating a vision• Engaging in inspiring communication• Individualising communication• Knowing when to be demanding and directive

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Is the role of the coach overstated?

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Trapdoors and Honeymoons

Tottenham Hotspur FC1992 – 2008

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Did this only happen at Spurs?

All Premier League Football Clubs1992 – 2008

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Challenging the ‘single leader’ assumption

Leadership is asingle-handed,

heroic performancethat is the property

of the individual

Leadership issocially-constructedwith followers in a

context

Sinclair (2007)

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Who is the leader?GB Rowing Example

Team DirectorDavid Tanner

AthleteGreg Searle

Men’s coachJurgen Grobler

Eight’s coachMark Banks Eight’s stroke

Dan RitchieEight’s coxPhelan Hill

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Who is the leader?

Coach

AthleteLeadership

Manager

Captain

Many people providing leadershipwhen required. Not just one leader

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Distributed Leadership

• Wide range of individuals and groups are brought into leadership (not just one coach).

• Leadership practice is though of as a product of the interactions of leaders, followers and situations

• This, therefore, is an interactive, rather than leader-based perspective

• Early days – little empirical evidence

Spillane (2005)

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Is a sport group merely the collection of a number of individuals and the leader the most

dominant individual?

• The idea of there being a single leader of a sport group seems to be an oversimplification.

• The importance of the coach is perhaps overstated at the expense of contextual factors such as available resources.

• Leadership may be more helpfully thought of as being distributed across many individuals within a sport group.

It doesn’t appear so

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References

• See notes.

• The author can be contacted at the following:– rfryer75@gmail.com