An Analysis of Leadership Preferences of Athletes in Division III Sports

Abstract

Within sports many teams have equal talent levels, yet some teams perform better than others. One of the factors responsible for this is the coaching staff and their ability to apply leadership techniques. Leadership can be grouped into five different types: training and instruction, democratic, autocratic, social support, and positive feedback. In order for leaders to be totally successful they must know the approaches that their players want used because an athlete's perceived action of a coach are more important than the action itself. This study focused on men's NCAA Division III basketball and football teams with the goal of investigating if there was a difference in what the athletes wanted from a coach in terms of leadership styles between upper and lower classmen, and basketball and football athletes. The findings from this study will be used to help future coaches trying to decide the best style or combination of leadership styles to use with their team or a certain part of their team. The results of this study could also assist coaches when they are looking for assistant coaches. The results that this study had some interesting findings, based on the ANOV As that were run there are no differences between any of the sub-groups in the study when looking at how much they want a coach to use each of the leadership styles. This study also shows the order that each of the four sub-groups want a coach to use the various leadership styles.