The Development of a Scale to Measure Shared Leadership in Youth Sport

Abstract

Shared leadership is described as the dynamic process of distributing leadership influence across multiple team members. It is viewed as an effective form of management to deal with increased complexity in youth team sport. However, literature on youth leadership development and reliable and valid measures to assess shared leadership in youth sport is still lacking. This paper seeks to make a contribution to the youth leadership literature by developing an instrument to measure shared leadership among young football players. A total of 746 U17 players from 62 different youth football teams in two samples in The Netherlands were surveyed. The Youth Athlete Shared Leadership (YASL) in football instrument comprises three factors: ‘steering’, ‘coaching’ and ‘intervening’. This research contributes to the common understanding of youth leadership development in general and youth team leadership in particular. The practical contribution is a tool for coaches to develop shared leadership behavior in youth football.

制定衡量青年运动中共享领导能力的量表。

共享领导被描述为在多个团队成员之间分配领导影响的动态过程。它被视为一种有效的管理形式, 可以应对青年团队运动中日益增加的复杂性。但是, 仍然缺乏有关青年领导力发展以及评估青年运动中共享领导力的可靠有效措施的文献。本文旨在通过开发一种衡量年轻足球运动员之间共享领导力的工具, 为青年领导力文献做出贡献。在荷兰的两个样本中, 对来自62个不同青年足球队的746名U17运动员进行了调查。足球文书中的青年运动员共享领导（YASL）包含三个因素：”指导”, ”教练”和”干预”。这项研究有助于对青年领导能力的发展, 尤其是青年团队领导能力的普遍理解。实际的贡献是教练在青年足球中发展共享领导行为的工具。

Keywords:

• Adolescence
• team
• EFA
• CFA
• coaching

关键字:

• 青春期
• 团队
• EFA
• CFA
• 教练。

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gerco van Dalfsen

Gerco van Dalfsen (Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen, The Netherlands) is a senior lecturer in Sport Management at the institute for Sport Studies. His teaching and research focusses on sport in combination with management, entrepreneurship and leadership. He has been the secretary general for EASM for more than 8 years and is now involved in the World Association for Sport Management (WASM).

Jo Van Hoecke

Jo Van Hoecke (Ph.D., Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium) is an associate professor at the Department of Sports Policy and Management at the faculty of Physical Education. His research focusses on the management of sport clubs and youth academies in particular. He is also Business/Product Manager of Double PASS (www.doublepass.com), a spin-off company of the Vrije Universiteit Brussels in the field of Quality and Performance Management in Sports. Jo van Hoecke has (co)authored more than 200 scientific, popular science and opinion articles.

Hans Westerbeek

Hans Westerbeek (Ph.D., Victoria University Melbourne, Australia) is professor and Pro-Vice Chancellor Sport Strategy. He is a past President (and founding Board member) of the Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand and of the Netherlands Chamber of Commerce in Australia. Professor Westerbeek has (co)authored more than 200 scientific, popular science and opinion articles, 23 books and 16 book chapters. His books have been translated in Dutch, Greek, Chinese, Russian and Arabic.

Veerle De Bosscher

Veerle De Bosscher (Ph.D., Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium) is a professor at the department of Sports Policy and Management at the faculty of Physical Education. Her research has resulted in more than 120 publications. She (co)authored 25 book chapters; and seven English and eight Dutch books (e.g. Successful elite sport policies; the Global Sporting Arms Race (Meyer & Meyer Sport, 211 cit.). She has established and coordinates a worldwide international network on research in high performance sport, called SPLISS (Sports Policy factors Leading to International Sporting Success).