The impact of values based leadership on sport coaching

Abstract

There is growing concern that the current cultural environment in sports fails to develop ethical and moral character in athletes. An examination of the development and genesis of values-based leadership (VBL) in business allows the construction of a model for VBL in sport coaching. After defining each VBL behavior a literature review documents previously confirmed benefits occurring in the sport environment. The four VBL theories of authentic, ethical, servant and transformational leadership are identified as most useful. In depth interviews and ethnographic observations are conducted with eight NCAA Division 1 basketball coaches to determine the origin, application, and priority of the values underlying individual VBL behaviors. Twenty NCAA coaches were interviewed and observed, with eight displaying behaviors consistent with the values they espoused. Based on the VBL business literature, a literature review of VBL applications in sport and the NCAA coaches studied, a VBL model for sport coaching is proposed.

Keywords:

• Values-based leadership
• ethical leadership
• authentic leadership
• servant leadership
• transformational leadership
• sport coaching

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.