Preferred Leadership Based on Athlete Gender, Race, and Playing Time

Purpose

The Multidimensional Model for Sport Leadership (Chelladurai, 1980) states that performance and satisfaction are functions of the congruency between the preferred leadership of student-athletes, the required behavior, and the actual behavior. Research should examine how appropriate the model is to today's athletic culture. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to determine what extent the preferred coaching behaviors reported by student athletes vary based on race, gender, and playing time and measure the congruency of those preferences with the actual coaching behaviors reported by coaches.

Methods

NCAA Division-I student-athletes (n = 140) and head coaches (n = 14) in Baseball, Men's and Women's Basketball, Men's and Women's Soccer, Softball, and Volleyball were surveyed using the Revised Leadership Scale for Sport (RLSS). Using multiple regression analysis, the authors attempted to predict what coaching behaviors student-athletes preferred based on student-athlete gender, race, and playing time.

Analysis/Results

None of the regression models were significant, indicating a lack of variance between the predictor groups. Also, the current data revealed student-athletes reported a significantly higher means in the Democratic Behavior and Situational Consideration subscales than head coaches, indicating a degree of conflict between student-athlete preference and actual coaching behaviors.

Conclusions

The results of this study suggest that there are no differences between gender groups, racial groups, or groups of different playing times. Therefore, coaches should exhibit certain leadership behaviors for all athletes, regardless of the athlete characteristics. This would indicate that the MML is outdated and should be reexamined to adapt it to the modern athletic culture. However, the results also indicate a revision of the RLSS is needed, as two of the subscales showed low levels of internal consistency. A revision of the instrument would allow for more quality investigation of the MML, increasing knowledge of coaching and leadership.