Transformational leadership and creativity in sport: Examining the mediating role of support for innovation

ABSTRACT

Understanding how and when transformational leadership is related to followers’ perceptions is an important issue. The present study aims to investigate the potential mediating role of support for innovation in the relationship between transformational leadership and creativity in team sports. We also propose that players’ team tenure could moderate this relationship.

A cross-sectional design was used. Athletes (N_players = 447, N_team = 45, M_age = 22.12; SD = 5.09) completed questionnaires assessing transformational leadership, support for innovation and creativity.

Support for innovation mediated the positive relationship between inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and high-performance expectations as exogenous variables and creativity as a dependent variable. Moreover, the relationship between intellectual stimulation and creativity was significantly weaker when players’ team tenure was high. The relationship between transformational leadership behaviours (inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and high-performance expectations) and support for innovation was stronger when players’ team tenure was low.

The current study provides the first evidence of a relationship between transformational leadership and creativity through support for innovation in team sports. This study is also the first to have provided evidence of the role of players’ team tenure in those mediational relationships. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Group dynamics
• coach
• team sport
• leader

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ It is important to note that these behaviours are conceptual additions from the MLQ-5X (Bass & Avolio, 2005) and, as such, contain a total of three items from the MLQ-5X and three items that have been modified from the original MLQ-5X items. All six items were reproduced by special permission of the publisher, Mind Garden Inc. (www.mindgarden.com) from the “Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire for Research” by Bernard M. Bass and Bruce J. Avolio. Copyright 1995 by Bernard M. Bass and Bruce J. Avolio. All rights reserved. Further reproduction is prohibited without the publisher’s written consent.

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.