Abstract
Fairness is defined as an individualized perception of an action or statement as appropriate and just according to group rules and standards (Blanchard, 1986; Mallard, Lamont, & Guetzkow, 2009). The purpose of the study was to examine athlete leader fairness in relation to athlete leadership behaviours, cohesion, and athlete satisfaction. Participants were 203 (male n = 113; female n = 90; Mage = 19.85 years, SD = 1.51) intercollegiate team sport athletes. Participants completed the Leadership Scale for Sports (Chelladurai & Saleh, 1980), Differentiated Transformational Leadership Inventory (Callow, Smith, Hardy, Arthur, & Hardy, 2009), Group Environment Questionnaire (Eys, Carron, Bray, & Brawley, 2007), Athlete Satisfaction Questionnaire (Riemer & Chelladurai, 1998), and a leader fairness inventory (Colquitt, 2001). Data were analyzed using path analysis to examine relationships among the variables. Task-oriented leadership predicted procedural fairness (B = .48) and distributive fairness (B = .46), transformational leadership predicted distributive fairness (B = .31), interpersonal fairness (B = .39), and informational fairness (B = .39), and transactional leadership predicted procedural fairness (B = .23), interpersonal fairness (B = .21), and informational fairness (B = .13). In turn, procedural and distributive fairness predicted task cohesion (B = 1.52 and 1.54, respectively), which then predicted satisfaction with performance (B = .40) and the team (B = 1.19). Findings from the present study provide support for athlete leaders as a source of leader fairness perceptions in team sport. Additionally, perceptions of athlete leader fairness are identified as an antecedent of cohesion and athlete satisfaction.