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ABSTRACT
Effective leadership is perceived as a key factor for optimal team functioning. The present study aimed to identify the characteristics of athlete leaders with respect to four different leadership roles (i.e., task leader, motivational leader, social leader, and external leader), while recognizing the surrounding team context. Furthermore, we aimed to identify the most decisive characteristics for a player's perceived leadership quality on each of these leadership roles. An on-line survey was completed by 4451 players and coaches within nine different team sports in Flanders (Belgium). The present study assessed leaders' characteristics in comparison with the other players in the team. The findings revealed two decisive characteristics for athlete leaders' perceived leadership quality: (1) the impact on teammates' team confidence, and (2) being socially well accepted by the other players. Furthermore, informal leaders outscored the team captain on all leadership characteristics, except team tenure. The study findings were similar for both players and coaches in male and female teams.
Keywords: leader attributes, informal leadership, team captain, peer leadership, leadership development, coaching
INTRODUCTION
High-quality leadership is essential for the numerous groups that shape the way we live, work and play. Countries are needing good leaders, the quality of top management is stated as the crucial factor for the success of a business organization, and the quality of teachers is assumed to determine the education of our future generation (Chelladurai, 2012). Also in sports, effective leadership is perceived as one of the key determinants for optimal team functioning (Hackman & Wageman, 2005). Therefore, the abundant research on coach leadership and, more specifically, on the characteristics of high-quality coaches is not surprising. By contrast, leadership within the team (i.e., athlete leadership) has only recently become the object of sport leadership research (for a comprehensive literature overview, we refer to the work of Cotterill & Fransen, 2016).
The rapidly growing body of athlete leadership research focused on how to identify athlete leaders within the team (Fransen, Van Puyenbroeck, et al., 2015b), on the different roles athlete leaders occupy (Fransen, Vanbeselaere, De Cuyper, Vande Broek, & Boen, 2014; Loughead, Hardy, & Eys, 2006), and on the advantages of having high-quality athlete leaders in the team. With respect to the advantages, high-quality athlete leadership in the team has been associated...