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Transformational Leadership in Sport: Coaching Behaviors, Team Cohesion, and Student-Athlete Commitment
Parazak, Stephanie E.
Parazak, Stephanie E.
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Text, Psychology, Department of, Honors papers, Student research
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Abstract
Although transformational leadership has been utilized as a successful leadership model in
business, education, and military settings, more research is needed to extend its applicability
to sport. Based on survey data collected from 356 National Collegiate Athletic Association
student-athletes representing eight different sports, the present study examined the
relationship between transformational leadership and student-athlete gender as these
variables predict student-athlete ratings of team cohesion and athlete commitment to the sport
team. Results indicated that transformational leadership predicted increased team cohesion
and that female athletes rated their teams as more cohesive than did male athletes. Further,
ratings of coach transformational leadership behaviors significantly and positively predicted
student-athlete commitment, but this effect was stronger for male athletes than female
athletes. Additional exploratory analyses indicated that the four subscales of the
transformational leadership paradigm were strongly correlated; thus the components of
transformational leadership are unlikely to have unique effects on team dynamics and are
vulnerable to critique due to their lack of discrimnant variability as subscales. These findings
suggest that utilizing transformational leadership behaviors may be an effective way for
collegiate athletic coaches to increase cohesion and commitment among their student-athletes
and raise questions as to the uniqueness of the four dimensions of transformational
leadership.
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Stephanie Parazak granted permission for the digitization of this paper. It was submitted by CD.