Chapter 6: Leadership In Sport

Question 1

• Define leadership
• What 8 skills should a leader demonstrate.
• Explain the 2 pathways to become a leader and the advantage and disadvantage of both pathways.
• Describe a Authoritarian leader, 3 ways there are effective and ineffective.
• Describe a Laissez-faire leader, 3 ways there are effective and ineffective.

Answer 1

• The ability to influence other to achieve a goal.
• Knowledge, communication skills, enthusiastic, motivational, respectful, charismatic, natural leadership, ability to adapt different styles of leadership
  1. Emergent leader: Rises from a group. Ad: If they want to be there then it’s good. Dis: They may not have the necessary skills.
  2. Prescribed leader: Appointed by a higher authority. Ad: They have the skills to do it. Dis: May not have support of the rest of the group.
• Has complete power and decisions can be made without consultation. They’re concerned with achievement and are good in situations where safety is an issue, time is limited and athletes are extrinsically motivated. Ineffective when: players expect opinions to be heard, players are resentful and morale is low.
• Has minimal role, allowing group decision making. Effective when: players are intrinsically motivated, experienced and situations are low risk. Ineffective when: leader loses impact, situations are high risk and nobody is providing feedback

Question 2

• Describe a Democratic leader, 3 ways there are effective and ineffective.
• Give 3 reasons why some don’t want to be in leadership roles.
• What 6 factors should be considered to determine which leadership style is best?

Answer 2

• Works by consultation with leaders and members to make decisions. They’re concerned about the members of the group, what they want to achieve, what their expectations are and their enjoyment. Effective when: plenty of planning time, athletes are intrinsically motivated and team building is key. Ineffective when: shortage of time, no room for error and leaders feel threatened
• Different values, role conflicts and credibility of leader.
  1. Team size: large = Authoritarian and small = democratic.
  2. Nature of team eg personalities of members.
  3. Personality of leader eg their confidence and experience.
  4. Type of activity: complexity and level of danger.
  5. Level of competition
  6. Importance of event

Question 3

• Give some advice to a coach coaching children.
• Give some advice to a coach coaching indigenous athletes.
• Give some advice to a coach coaching Gen X athletes (1961-1981)
• Give some advice to a coach coaching Gen Y athletes (1970-2000).
• An effective leader will adapt their leadership style to suit different team circumstances. Identify three different leadership styles.
• Identify the coaching style by the coach in a picture where he is talking to a group of children seen having a good time and explain the positive characteristics of this style.
• Assuming that a democratic coach has only the one coaching style, how would he be held back when employing this style to an under 20 national team?
• The Perth Angels are a elite cheerleading team who have successfully represented WA and AUS. The coach of the team is also the coach of a beginner’s squad of 10 year olds. Identify the leadership style the coach could use for each squad and justify your choice by describing two characteristics of each squad that would indicate the appropriateness of the leadership style.

Answer 3

• Devote time to each member, make it fun, not complicated, not too long and plenty of demonstrations.
• Understand a bit of the culture, understand its structure and protocols.
• A laissez-faire approach might be best, recognise their experience and expect to be challenged.
• Be experienced, friendly, exchange ideas and time to get to know the members.
• Laissez-fair, democratic and authoritarian.
• Demoncratic: skill development is emphasised, coach is well liked by players and very good with inexperienced.
• Players may take advantage of flexible approach and try to take over, may not provide adequate motivation and discipline may suffer.
• Beginner squad: authoritarian as safety is a concern and children are extrinsically motivated. Elite athletes: democratic as they are intrinsically motivated and want to contribute.