From Autocracy to Empowerment: Teams with Shared Leadership Perceive their Coaches to be Better Leaders

Abstract

Sports coaches often fear that empowering the players in their team would undermine their own leadership status. To investigate the legitimacy of this perception, we mapped the leadership structure within 64 sports teams (N = 840). The results highlight that the perceived leadership quality of the coaches is positively related to the density of their team's leadership networks (i.e., the average leadership qualities of all players). This finding held for task, motivational, social, and external leadership. The best coaches are thus the ones who adopt a shared leadership approach and who strengthen the leadership quality of their players.

Lay Summary

Sports coaches often feel that empowering the players in their teams undermines their own leadership status. This study investigates the legitimacy of this perception within 64 sports teams. Our findings provide evidence for the opposite view; by creating and developing leaders in their teams, coaches are perceived as better leaders themselves.

Notes

1 Coach leadership can be defined as a behavioral process that is used to increase athlete performance and satisfaction (Chelladurai & Riemer, 1998). With respect to the distinction that organizational researchers make between leadership and coaching, we apply the definition of Hackman and Wageman (2005) to the sports context. In this regard, sports coaches not only coach their individual athletes and team as a whole to improve their effectiveness but also engage in activities such as structuring the team, establishing the team’s purposes, and providing the necessary resources. As a result, their core tasks reach beyond purely coaching activities and they can therefore be defined as “leaders,” which is a more inclusive term compared with the rather strict term coaches. The same reasoning holds for athletes within the team who occupy a leadership role.