Abstract
Leadership has been shown to be a fundamental factor influencing the performance of sport teams. Within these teams, leadership can be provided by coaches, formal athlete leaders, such as team captains, and other ‘informal’ athlete leaders. The role of the athlete leader in a team, either formal or informal, has been consistently reported over the last 10 years to have a significant impact upon a teams’ functioning and effectiveness, as well as teammates’ general health and mental wellbeing. As such, cultivating the provision of this leadership within a team has emerged as an important focus for managers, coaches, sport psychologists and scholars alike. While the recognition of the importance of athlete leadership is well established, there has been a lag in the development of systematic approaches to enhance and develop the leadership skills and capabilities of the athletes within sport teams. As a result, this paper seeks to review contemporary examples and current understanding of approaches to athlete leadership development. The paper will also highlight future areas for research and applied practice development.
Highlights
Leadership is a fundamental aspect of sport, as it relates to the effectiveness of teams within sport environments (Cotterill and Fransen, 2016)
Team leadership can stem from coaches, formal athlete leaders, such as team captains, and informal athlete leaders
This leadership of and within sport teams has emerged as an important focus for managers, Athlete Leadership Development coaches, sport psychologists and scholars alike (Day et al, 2014)
Summary
Leadership is a fundamental aspect of sport, as it relates to the effectiveness of teams within sport environments (Cotterill and Fransen, 2016). Team leadership can stem from coaches, formal athlete leaders, such as team captains, and informal athlete leaders. Athlete leadership has been defined as ‘an athlete, occupying a formal or informal role within a team, who influences a group of team members to achieve a common goal’ Recent work has reported that the leadership needs of a sport team exceed the capabilities of one individual, and it is often multiple persons in the team who occupy the different leadership roles on and off the field (e.g., Fransen et al, 2014; Duguay et al, 2019). The leadership needs within a sports team can be met in a range of different ways by different individuals undertaking different roles including, coaches, team captains and informal athlete leaders (Mertens et al, 2021). The aim of this review is to clarify current understanding regarding the sources of leadership within sports teams, and crucially to review current understanding regarding the development of leadership and leaders within sports teams
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