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Standing out from the crowd: Identifying the traits and behaviors that characterize high‐quality athlete leaders
Author(s) -
Fransen Katrien,
Haslam S. Alexander,
Steffens Niklas K.,
Boen Filip
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of medicine and science in sports
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.575
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1600-0838
pISSN - 0905-7188
DOI - 10.1111/sms.13620
Subject(s) - psychology , quality (philosophy) , athletes , big five personality traits , social psychology , shared leadership , identity (music) , perception , social identity theory , leadership , cross cultural leadership , field (mathematics) , personality , leadership style , applied psychology , public relations , political science , neuroleadership , social group , medicine , philosophy , physics , epistemology , neuroscience , acoustics , physical therapy , mathematics , pure mathematics
Objectives An emerging body of evidence indicates that, in addition to the coach, athlete leaders within a team are vital for a sports team's success. Sports teams are therefore keen to know which attributes are distinctly characteristic of high‐quality leaders on and off the field. The present study aims to shed more light on this question. Method A wide variety of traits and leadership behaviors was assessed in a sample of 776 athletes, stratified across gender, competitive level, and four sports. The leadership quality of each of the athletes (ie, as task, motivational, social, and external leader) was determined on the basis of the perceptions of teammates using social network analysis. Results Findings revealed that leadership behaviors outweighed personality traits in distinguishing high‐quality leaders from others on and off the field. Providing identity leadership that creates, embodies, advances, and embeds a collective sense of “us” in their teams was found to be a particularly important leadership behavior that characterized high‐quality leaders both on and off the field. Conclusion The fact that leadership behaviors were important predictors of high‐quality athlete leadership (and more important predictors than traits) suggests that leaders are not just born, but can also be made. Our findings therefore highlight the clear need for leadership development programs to target the behaviors that we identified as important predictors of leadership.