Although coaches and players recognize the importance of leaders within the team, research on athlete leadership is sparse. The present study expands knowledge of athlete leadership by refining the current classification and exploring the importance of the team captain. An online survey was completed by 4451 players and coaches within nine different team sports in Flanders (Belgium). The results revealed that the proposed additional role of motivational leader was perceived as clearly distinct from the already established roles (task, social, and external leader). Furthermore, almost half of the participants (44%) did not perceive their captain as the principal leader on any of the four roles. These findings underline that the leadership qualities attributed to the captain as the team"s formal leader are overrated. It can be concluded that leadership is spread throughout the team; the informal leaders rather than the captain take the lead, both on and off the field.
Based on Self-Determination Theory, the present study adopts a helicopter-perspective towards motivating (i.e., autonomy support, structure) and demotivating coaching (i.e., control, chaos). Among five independent samples, consisting of individual and team sport coaches (N = 893; Mage = 37.83 years) and athletes (N = 377; Mage = 17.46 years), Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) analyses were used to examine how a variety of coaching practices reflective of four different coaching styles (i.e., autonomy support, control, structure, and chaos), assessed with a new vignette-based instrument, related to one another.Findings revealed that the (de)motivating practices could be graphically presented within a two-dimensional circumplex, with the horizontal axis representing the level of needsupportive coaching behavior and the vertical axis representing the level of coach directiveness. Moreover, the four coaching styles could be segmented in eight more specific approaches (i.e. clarifying, guiding, attuning, participative, awaiting, abandoning, domineering, and demanding), which formed an ordered sinusoid pattern of correlations, both among each other and in relation to a variety of critical outcomes (e.g. coach need satisfaction, athletes' motivation). It is discussed how a circumplex approach produces both a more integrative and more fine-grained insight regarding (de)motivating coaching behaviour, with resulting implications for practice.
The present research examines the impact of leaders' confidence in their team on the team confidence and performance of their teammates. In an experiment involving newly assembled soccer teams, we manipulated the team confidence expressed by the team leader (high vs neutral vs low) and assessed team members' responses and performance as they unfolded during a competition (i.e., in a first baseline session and a second test session). Our findings pointed to team confidence contagion such that when the leader had expressed high (rather than neutral or low) team confidence, team members perceived their team to be more efficacious and were more confident in the team's ability to win. Moreover, leaders' team confidence affected individual and team performance such that teams led by a highly confident leader performed better than those led by a less confident leader. Finally, the results supported a hypothesized mediational model in showing that the effect of leaders' confidence on team members' team confidence and performance was mediated by the leader's perceived identity leadership and members' team identification. In conclusion, the findings of this experiment suggest that leaders' team confidence can enhance members' team confidence and performance by fostering members' identification with the team.
This multi-study paper reports the development and initial validation of an inventory for the Characteristics of Resilience in Sports Teams (CREST). In four related studies, 1225 athletes from Belgium and the United Kingdom were sampled. The first study provided content validity for an initial item set. The second study explored the factor structure of the CREST, yielding initial evidence but no conclusive results. In contrast, the third and fourth study provided evidence for a two-factor measure, reflecting (a) the team's ability to display resilient characteristics and (b) the vulnerabilities being displayed under pressure. Overall, the CREST was shown to be reliable at the between-players and the between-teams level, as well as over time. Moreover, its concurrent validity was verified by linking the characteristics of team resilience with various relevant team processes. Its discriminant validity was established by comparing the CREST measures with individual athletes' resilient traits. In conclusion, the CREST was argued to be a usable state-like measure of team-level resilient characteristics and vulnerabilities. To gain further understanding of team resilience as a process, this measurement could be used in future process-oriented research examining adverse events and sports team's pre-and post-adversity functioning.
Grounded in the Cognitive Evaluation Theory, a mini-theory of Self-Determination Theory, this experimental field study sought to examine the impact of competence support of both coaches and athlete leaders on athletes' competence satisfaction, intrinsic motivation, and subjective as well as objective performance. Male basketball players (N = 120) were allocated to groups of 5 players. These groups were then randomly assigned to a control group or to 1 of 3 experimental conditions. In these experimental conditions, either the coach, the athlete leader, or both provided motivational feedback to their team. The provision of motivational feedback by either the coach or the athlete leader was sufficient to increase athletes' competence satisfaction, intrinsic motivation, and objective performance (i.e., enhanced execution time without a decrease in scoring percentage) relative to the control group. Interestingly, when both the coach and the athlete leader provided competence support, a surplus effect was observed on objective performance compared with when only the coach provided competence support. Furthermore, structural equation modeling revealed that players' competence satisfaction mediated the relationship between the provided competence support and players' intrinsic motivation, while a direct effect was observed on objective performance. In conclusion, the study findings indicate that also athlete leaders can adopt a motivating role, and that by doing so, their impact is as strong as the impact of the coach. Both coaches and athlete leaders can thus boost athletes' objective performance and foster competence satisfaction, with the latter resulting in increased intrinsic motivation.
Leaders do not operate in social vacuums, but are imbedded in a web of interpersonal relationships with their teammates and coach. The present manuscript is the first to use social network analysis to provide more insight in the leadership structure within sports teams. Two studies were conducted, including respectively 25 teams (N = 308; Mage = 24.9 years old) and 21 teams (N = 267; Mage = 24.3 years old). The reliability of a fourfold athlete leadership categorization (task, motivational, social, external leader) was established by analyzing leadership networks, which mapped the complete leadership structure within a team. The study findings highlight the existence of shared leadership in sports teams. More specifically, regarding the task and external leadership roles, no significant differences were observed between the leadership quality of coaches and athlete leaders. However, athlete leaders were perceived as better motivational and social leaders than their coaches. Furthermore, both the team captain and informal athlete leaders shared the lead on the different leadership roles. Social network analysis was found to be a pioneering but valuable tool for obtaining a deeper insight in the leadership structure within sports teams.
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