Expert Premier League soccer managers’ use of transformational leadership behaviours and attitude towards sport integrity: An intrinsic case study

Abstract

Abstract. The present study is the first to examine transformational leadership behaviours [1] and integrity attitudes [2] of expert, Premier League and International level football managers. To provide a rich, detailed exploration of the expert managers' experiences, a qualitative approach was adopted utilising holistic content analysis. Constructed narratives revealed the key behaviours demonstrated were inspirational messages or team talks (i.e., inspirational motivation), empathy (i.e., individualised consideration), introducing new training methods (i.e., intellectual stimulation), using exemplar players (i.e., appropriate role modelling), and goal setting (i.e., high performance expectations). However, the use and effect of such behaviours varied greatly between managers. Each of the managers also claimed to have been willing to "bend the rules" as a player and frequently used euphemistic labels [3] to describe such behaviour. However, upon entering management, all three managers claimed to have adjusted such attitudes without providing an explanation for this.

The Birth of the Stars: A Participatory and Appreciative Action and Reflection Investigation into the Leadership and Development of a New Superleague Netball Club

“…Millie's example illustrates TFL in the academy in the sense that the coaching team was helping the players to reframe the problem at hand, did not publicly criticize the players, and questioned the conventional wisdom that the score line was the most salient factor (Bass & Riggio, 2006). The modeling of goal setting as TFL coaching behavior has been identified in previous investigations and has similarly been used to illustrate processes aligned with intellectual stimulation and inspirational motivation (e.g., Mills & Boardley, 2016;Vella et al, 2013a). Additionally, that the girls were asked to pick out positives from the performance provides one illustration of how followers within the Severn Stars were included in creative processes-there were many others.…”

Development and initial validation of an indirect measure of transformational leadership integrity

“…Building on the work of Perugini and Leone (2009) and earlier qualitative research of Mills and Boardley (2016), study 1 aims to develop an indirect measure of self-attitudes towards transformational leadership integrity, as described by Bass and Steidlmeier (1999).…”

“…An initial list of 24 stimuli items (i.e., 12 characteristics pertaining to true and 12 to pseudo-transformational leadership integrity) were generated. All stimuli items were generated using: (1) the theoretical framework of transformational leadership integrity proposed by Bass and Steidlmeier (1999), (2) qualitative discussions with seven leaders (i.e., three expert football managers; Mills & Boardley, 2016], one manager within the national health service, two academic leaders, and one business leader), and (3) with consideration to the stimuli word selection criteria discussed by Nosek, Greenwald and Banaji (2007). In order to provide the optimal number of items for the IAT (Nosek, Greenwald, & Banaji, 2005) the quantity of terms was further reduced down to 16-items through discussions with two experienced leadership researchers (see Figure 1).…”

Felicity conditions of a theory of expert leadership in professional football

“…To date extant research focuses on the role and behaviours of football managers (Kelly, 2008); the impact managers have on organisational outcomes (Bridgewater et al, 2011); impact of managerial change (Audas, Dobson, & Goddard, 2002); and leadership influence on and off the field of play (Molan, Matthews, & Arnold, 2016). Professional football does, however, offer a unique environment to study the TEL as football managers are considered to hold expert status (Mills & Boardley, 2016). For Avolio (2007) leadership is the combination of leaders, followers and complex contexts.…”

“…To provide a bit of context, leaders in professional club football structures (Figure 1) are typically known as Owners or Chairmen who provide the resource and set the strategic direction for off-the-pitch activity. Whereas, manager is the designation given to individuals who are responsible for the core business or on-field performance that ultimately decides the fortunes of a football club (Flint, Plumley, & Wilson, 2016;Mills & Boardley, 2016). Without revisiting and igniting further debate on management versus leadership (Drucker, 2012) the role of a football manager, in many ways, is a leadership position.…”