Coaching Leadership Preferences: Insight from the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division III Athlete

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify and compare coaching leadership preferences of 1,859 varsity student-athletes participating at the Division III level in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The athletes attended one of fourteen colleges and universities located in the Midwest. Teams were selected according to task dependence and the existence of both male and female squads. Three independent (individual) sports and three interdependent (team) sports were selected: men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s soccer, men’s baseball and women’s softball, men’s and women’s swimming, men’s and women’s tennis, and men’s and women’s track & field. The Revised Leadership Scale for Sport (Zhang, Jensen, & Mann, 1997) was used to assess participants’ leadership preferences on the dimensions of training and instruction behavior, democratic behavior, autocratic behavior, social support behavior, positive feedback behavior, and situational consideration behavior. Females had a higher preference for positive feedback and situational consideration, whereas males expressed stronger preferences for social support and autocratic behavior. Individual sport athletes demonstrated a higher preference for democratic behavior, positive feedback, training and instruction, situational consideration, and social support than did team sport athletes and team sport athletes preferred autocratic behavior more than athletes participating in individual sports. The gender by task dependence interaction was not significant. These results suggest that differences in athletes and particular sports teams may facilitate specific leadership behaviors