Athletes perception of their coach transformational leadership and coach-athlete relationship in team and individual sports

Jamilah Ahmad Radzi

Abstract

Coach is a person who has influential figures, leads and engages in a wide range of roles. Sports coaches play important roles in sport as being responsible for numerous outcomes relevant to athlete development, learning and performance. Transformational leadership has been shown to have positive impacts on a wide range of sport outcomes. Furthermore, the coach-athlete relationship is vital to many outcomes such as satisfaction, well-being and self-concept. Therefore, the current study aimed to examine athlete's perception of coach transformational leadership and coach-athlete relationship in team and individual sports. The sample comprised of 156 university athletes which includes team (Football n = 34, Netball n = 22, Frisbee n = 30) and individual (Athletics n = 22, Badminton n = 20, Tennis n = 28). Each participant completed the Differentiated Transformational Leadership Inventory and the Coach-Athlete Relationship Questionnaire. Results revealed that there was a significant difference in component of the coach-athlete relationship between team and individual sport, whilst there was no significant difference between components of transformational leadership with team and individual sport. Results also showed that there was no significant difference between the components of the coach athlete relationship with gender. There was also no significant difference on components of transformational leadership with gender except component of idealized influence. The results of this study could provide insight toward an athlete's perception of their coach transformational leadership and the quality of the coach-athlete relationship in different sport categories. Therefore, to increase the positive youth development in sports through transformational leadership behavior and the quality of coach-athlete relationship more study should be examined.

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