Leadership in Sports
Introduction
Leadership is hard to specifically define, roles and attributes change to adapt to the environment and context needed. George and Jones define leadership as ‘ the exercise of influence by one member of a group or organization over other members to help the group or organization’ (2002,pg. 375). This definition can be broken down with two definitions; Firstly exerting influence over other members and second aiding in a group or organization achieve its goals. ‘Leadership is something everyone would like to claim as a personal attribute, but it is very difficult to get any consensus on quite what it means’. (Weightman, 2004, pg. 129) Many theories and models have been developed to discover different approaches to leadership aiming to identify different traits and characteristics thought needed to be a good leader. In this portfolio I am going to explore different leadership approaches and attributes within the context of sport. Through examples of current leaders in sport I hope to identify similarities to theoretical evidence. Sport is a disciplined activity that demonstrates a lot of role models for leadership, not just athletes, a lot of jobs within the sport sector include leadership qualities.
What makes a leader?
The debate between is a leader born or made has opened up a lot of questions to what the attributes of a good leader are. Agreeing that a leader is influential and needs to inspire through organizing change makes us ponder weather traits of a leader are in their personalities or a skill you can acquire over time.
Often leaders are associated with having certain personality traits that highlight them as an admirable person. Davis (1972) found the four general traits related to leadership success were: * Intelligence- leaders are found to have high intelligence than their followers * Social Maturity- self-assurance and self- respect and can handle a wide variety of social situations * Achievement drive- found to
Leadership is hard to specifically define, roles and attributes change to adapt to the environment and context needed. George and Jones define leadership as ‘ the exercise of influence by one member of a group or organization over other members to help the group or organization’ (2002,pg. 375). This definition can be broken down with two definitions; Firstly exerting influence over other members and second aiding in a group or organization achieve its goals. ‘Leadership is something everyone would like to claim as a personal attribute, but it is very difficult to get any consensus on quite what it means’. (Weightman, 2004, pg. 129) Many theories and models have been developed to discover different approaches to leadership aiming to identify different traits and characteristics thought needed to be a good leader. In this portfolio I am going to explore different leadership approaches and attributes within the context of sport. Through examples of current leaders in sport I hope to identify similarities to theoretical evidence. Sport is a disciplined activity that demonstrates a lot of role models for leadership, not just athletes, a lot of jobs within the sport sector include leadership qualities.
What makes a leader?
The debate between is a leader born or made has opened up a lot of questions to what the attributes of a good leader are. Agreeing that a leader is influential and needs to inspire through organizing change makes us ponder weather traits of a leader are in their personalities or a skill you can acquire over time.
Often leaders are associated with having certain personality traits that highlight them as an admirable person. Davis (1972) found the four general traits related to leadership success were: * Intelligence- leaders are found to have high intelligence than their followers * Social Maturity- self-assurance and self- respect and can handle a wide variety of social situations * Achievement drive- found to