Résumé
Athlete leadership (AL) is a vital component of team performance and is positively associated with individual and team-level outcomes (Loughead, 2017). Researchers have shown that AL is often shared among multiple team members (Duguay et al., 2019). Given the relational nature of AL, Social Network Analysis (SNA) offers an ideal methodological approach, as it focuses on patterns of relationships and interactions among individuals (e.g., athletes) within a team (Borgatti et al., 2013). Although SNA has been used in sport psychology to examine team dynamics (e.g., Loughead et al., 2016), there is limited understanding of how AL is distributed across teammates. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the distribution of shared AL across team members of interdependent sport teams using SNA techniques. Network metrics, including density and centralization, were calculated for six sport teams and demonstrated substantial variability in how AL was distributed (e.g., on a scale of 0 to 1, density ranged from 0.32-0.84, and centralization ranged from 0.19-0.54). Exploratory analyses using structural equivalence techniques were conducted to examine how similarly positioned athletes are within the leadership network. For instance, in some teams, formal leaders occupy structurally equivalent positions, meaning they have similar leadership relationships with their teammates. In other teams, formal leaders have distinct positions within their team’s network, reflecting more diverse and individualized leadership relationships. The findings provide further evidence for the shared nature of AL and provides novel insight into the various network patterns of AL than can be present within a sport team.
