Sport Leadership Factors Affecting Youth Athletes: A Systematic Literature Review | Chapter 7 | Language, Literature and Education: Research Updates Vol. 10

 

Leadership is a fundamental aspect of sports performance, particularly within team sport environments. Another important component of leadership is communication and the art of making people see their value and potential. Effective leaders should possess several competencies, such as excellent communication skills, decision-making skills, creative thinking, demonstrating empathy, being flexible, intuitively optimistic and persistent. Good leadership is mandatory for athletes to develop and perform in their sport. Crucial components of leadership are communication, motivating athletes and unleashing their potential for personal growth and well-being. Sport leaders define and shape the environment that influences the need fulfilment of youth athletes to feel safe, to learn, and to perform. However, inappropriate or devaluing communication may thwart youth athlete’s needs. Good sports leadership of youth athletes is, however, not yet framed in a specific leadership style. Therefore, a systematic review was conducted to examine facilitating and hindering factors in youth sport leadership, i.e., for teenage athletes aged 10-18 years. The final selection included 14 studies that focused on various factors and dimensions in youth sport leadership from the perspective of self-determination theory and leadership styles. Most studies show the need for autonomy-supportive behaviour and aversion to controlling behaviour of the sport leader. Sport leaders who fail to provide sufficient supportive coaching reduce athletes’ engagement, well-being and competence development. The review also unfolded a noticeable Western bias in the studies selected as well, as a method bias indicating a lack of mixed-methods designs and only one qualitative study being selected. In conclusion, the necessity of motivational and development-oriented responsive youth leadership is emphasised as it requires more explicit quality monitoring in practice, policy and future research.

 

 

Author(s) Details

Alexander Minnaert
Department of Inclusion and Special Needs Education, University of Groningen, The Netherlands.

 

Sarah Lemstra-Brink
Department of Inclusion and Special Needs Education, University of Groningen, The Netherlands.

 

Please see the book here :- https://doi.org/10.9734/bpi/lleru/v10/7064