Abstract
Athlete leadership has been defined as an athlete occupying a formal or informal role within a team who influences a group of team members to achieve a common goal (Loughead et al., 2006). This definition highlights two types of athlete leaders: formal athlete leaders (e.g., designated by the coach or their teammates), and informal athlete leaders (e.g., emerges through the interactions that occur within the team). To date, research has found that coaches and athlete leaders exhibit different leadership behaviours (Loughead & Hardy, 2005). However, no research has examined whether the leadership behaviours exhibited by athletes differ based on their leadership role within the team. Therefore, the purpose was to compare the leadership behaviours of formal athlete leaders, informal athlete leaders, and athlete non-leaders. Athletes from a variety of team sports (N = 114) completed the Leadership Scale for Sports (Chelladurai & Saleh, 1980) that assessed their own leadership behaviours. The results of a one-way ANOVA indicated that the behaviours of Training and Instruction and Social Support differed between groups. In particular, formal athlete leaders exhibited significantly greater amounts of Training and Instruction, F(2, 110) = 3.24, p < .05, and Social Support, F(2, 110) = 3.36, p < 0.05, than athlete non-leaders. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding the role of athletes in the leadership that occurs within team sports.
