Leadership Styles and Sex of Coaches: What do Athletes Prefer?

What factors contribute to an athlete’s preferred coaching style? We investigated students’ preferred coaching styles using a two-part questionnaire. The first part included ten biographical informational questions. The second part consisted of the 38 questions that make up the Leadership Scale for...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe international journal of sport and society Vol. 1; no. 3; pp. 161 - 172
Main Authors Grenier, Danielle N., Mason, Susan E.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Aarhus Common Ground Research Networks 2010
Subjects
Athletes
Autocracy
Coaching
Leadership
Males
Men
Sports
Women
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Summary:What factors contribute to an athlete’s preferred coaching style? We investigated students’ preferred coaching styles using a two-part questionnaire. The first part included ten biographical informational questions. The second part consisted of the 38 questions that make up the Leadership Scale for Sports (Cellandurai & Saleh, 1978). The results of this study support the hypothesis that men and women both prefer male coaches over female coaches. Participants were asked the sex of their favorite coaches, of those they had previously worked with, and what sex coach they would prefer to work with. The data revealed that men who claimed their favorite coach had been a woman still preferred to be coached by a male coach. Men who stated that their favorite coach had been a man also preferred a male coach. Although a large majority of women who had a male coach as their favorite coach preferred to be coached by a man, women who claimed their favorite coach was a woman preferred female coaches. Finally, while women showed a stronger coaching-style preference than men, both men and women preferred a democratic coaching style over a more autocratic coaching style.
ISSN:2152-7857
2152-7865
DOI:10.18848/2152-7857/CGP/v01i03/54009