Abstract
Despite the well-known positive consequences of transformational coaches in sport, there is still little research exploring the mechanisms through which coaches’ transformational leadership exerts its impact on athletes. Multilevel SEM was used to examine the relationship between coaches’ transformational leadership style, a task-involving climate, and leadership effectiveness outcome criteria (i.e., players’ extra effort, coach effectiveness, and satisfaction with their coach), separately estimating between and within effects. A representative sample of 625 Spanish male soccer players ranging from 16 to 18 years old and nested in 50 teams completed a questionnaire package tapping the variables of interest. Results confirmed that at the team level, team perceptions of transformational leadership positively predicted teams’ perceptions of task climate, which in turn positively predicted the three outcome criteria. At the individual level, players’ perceptions of transformational leadership positively predicted teams’ perceptions of task climate, which in turn positively predicted teams’ extra effort and coach effectiveness. Mediation effects appeared at the team level for all the outcome criteria, and at the individual only for extra effort. Transformational leadership is recommended to enhance task climate, in order to increase players’ extra effort, their perceptions of the effectiveness of their coach, and their satisfaction with his/her leadership style.
Highlights
The transformational leadership paradigm [1] has been widely used to understand the effects of leaders’ behaviors in the field of applied psychology [2], and its significant potential for research in the sporting context has been increasingly recognized [3,4,5].Transformational leaders became a behavioral model for followers(idealize influence) to stimulate them to think in different ways to face new and old challenges and issues, give them challenges and meaning in everyday activities, and recognize individual differences through a supportive leadership style
Transformational leadership in sport has been shown to be positively related to several outcomes, including self-competence, enjoyment, and collective efficacy [10], self-efficacy [11], positive experiences related to physical activity and sport [12,13], extra effort [14], self-determined motivation [11,12,15], sport performance [16,17], and coaching competency and athlete satisfaction [18], among others
The Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) results revealed that the proposed factorial structure was acceptable for each instrument of the study: a one-factor model solution for transformational leadership style (χ2 (164) = 532.22, p < 0.01; root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.060 (CI = 0.054–0.065); standardized root mean residuals (SRMR) = 0.046; Tucker–Lewis index (TLI) = 0.959; comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.964) and for task-involving climate (χ2 (77) = 499.39, p < 0.01; RMSEA = 0.074 (CI = 0.070–0.079); SRMR = 0.058; TLI
Summary
The transformational leadership paradigm [1] has been widely used to understand the effects of leaders’ behaviors in the field of applied psychology [2], and its significant potential for research in the sporting context has been increasingly recognized [3,4,5]. Transformational leadership in sport has been shown to be positively related to several outcomes, including self-competence, enjoyment, and collective efficacy [10], self-efficacy [11], positive experiences related to physical activity and sport [12,13], extra effort [14], self-determined motivation [11,12,15], sport performance [16,17], and coaching competency and athlete satisfaction [18], among others Several studies (e.g., [11,17]) have indicated that transformational leaders may positively influence follower outcomes by creating environments focused on learning from the task, that is, through motivation-based mechanisms. It is strongly encouraged to explore whether transformational leaders are more likely to foster a task-involving motivational climate and how this climate might influence athletes
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