Abstract
Leadership in sports has been studied mostly in terms of coach-leadership. Coach leadership behavior has an impact on players’ performance. The purpose of this study is to understand the impact of situational, leader, and team member characteristics on coach leadership behavior styles in sports in state universities in Western Province, Sri Lanka. This study was conducted during the inter-university games held in 2014 considering the events of basketball, netball, volleyball, and Elle. Two hundred and ninety one athletes from Western Province state universities participated in this study. Gender, age, locus of control, and level of education and training variables were considered under coach characteristics. Nature of the sport, level of competition, and previous success and/or failure records were considered as situational factors which affect coach behaviors. Team member characteristics taken into consideration were gender, age, culture, and experiences. Data were collected through a standard questionnaire which was derived from the revised leadership scale for sports. Mean calculations was used as a parametric test to derive the influence of situational characteristics of the coach, leader and team member characteristics on coach leadership behavior. Statistical calculations were done using SPSS version 16.0.It was found that coaches carry out more training and instruction behavior in relation to females than males. Further, compared to females, males urge a higher influence on coaches to follow an autocratic behavior. Results further revealed that when the experiences of the athletes are less, they prefer their coaches to be more democratic. Additionally, it is found that the coaches carry out more situational consideration behavior when the level of competition is high. It can be concluded that the situational, leader, and team member characteristics have a moderate influence on coach leadership behavior. The findings of the study may influence researchers to engage in further research and also will be helpful for coaches to make decisions on athletes. KEYWORDS: Coach leadership, team-member characteristics, situational characteristics, leader characteristics, athletes
Highlights
IntroductionSports can be used as a tool to make a better world (The Olympic Museum, 2011)
According to the mean values depicts in table 02, athletes perceive more on coach leadership styles other than the autocratic behavior irrespective of coach’s age level
The mean values conclude that when the age level of the coach is increasing, the influence of the coach for training and instruction, and positive feedback leads to decrease
Summary
Sports can be used as a tool to make a better world (The Olympic Museum, 2011). The Olympic Museum (2011) categorized the main focusing areas which preserve advantages of sports and related activities as human dimension, political dimension and societal dimension. Multidimensional model of leadership (Chelladurai and Saleh, 1980; Chelladurai and Carron, 1978) is one of the main models developed during last few decades which cited equal emphasis on the role of both the coach and the athlete. This model to show the interactions based upon the characteristics team members and leaders
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
