Realising the Olympic dream: vision, support and challenge

Abstract

The sporting arena is replete with examples and anecdotes of inspirational coaches that have led teams to success, often in the face of adversity and against seemingly better opponents. Indeed, the influence of the coach is summarised nicely by Dan Britton talking about the legendary basketball Coach John Wooden: "His purpose in coaching was to instil greatness in others. He was committed to teaching, inspiring and motivating people, and he empowered his players to do great things" (p. 13). It is therefore surprising that the models of leadership and coaching in sport are either devoid of the notion of inspiration or only give it a passing mention; we still know very little about precisely why great coaches are great and how in turn they motivate their athletes to achieve Olympic greatness. For example, the sport coaching models developed by Challadurai and colleagues; Smith, Smoll and colleagues;Horn and colleagues; and Côté and colleagues have all provided an insight into the effects of coach behaviours, some processes and mechanisms by which these behaviours exert their influence and the moderating effects of situation, context, and personality. However, there is very little mention of the inspirational effects of great coaches in these theories and models.The purpose of this article is not to provide a review of the sport coaching models (for reviews, see Chelladurai, 1990Chelladurai, , 1993Chelladurai, , 2007Chelladurai & Riemer, 1998;Riemer, 2007;Smith & Smoll, 2007), rather we will delineate a new model of inspirational coaching based on the principles of vision, support, and challenge.Underpinned by transformational leadership theory (Bass, 1985) the meta-cognitive model of vision, support, and challenge was first developed by Hardy and Arthur in a support to achieve the vision; and (c) providing the challenge to achieve the vision. The underlying proposition is that the vision provides meaning and direction for athletes' effort.That is, the vision serves as the beacon towards which all the sweat, pain and sacrifice is directed on the path to Olympic success. The premise that underpins the vision, support and challenge model is that athletes can achieve their Olympic dreams provided they are truly inspired to do so; this is because all other things being equal the person who is motivated to practice longer and train harder will ultimately be the best.An important aspect of the vision, support, and challenge model is that it makes a distinction between what the coach does (i.e., coach behaviours) and the consequences of these coach behaviours (i.e., athlete's meta-cognitions) in the same model. That is, transformational leadership is what the coach does and athlete's perceptions of vision, support, and challenge are a direct consequence of coach behaviours. In the following article we firstly define the vision, support, and challenge constructs in our model, we then describe the impact that vision, support and challenge will have, and lastly we very briefly identify some key coach behaviours that we theo...

A Case Study of Excellence in Elite Sport: Motivational Climate in a World Champion Team

“…Through experience I've seen that if players are driven by their own intrinsic desires then they're gonna push a lot harder to achieve them. Collectively, if they establish what the goals and the challenges are and are aligned in what they're gonna do to achieve them, then they're more likely to be successful (also see Arthur, Hardy, & Woodman, 2012).…”

“…There is considerable evidence from the business and military domains (e.g., Bass & Riggio, 2006;Hardy et al, 2010), and growing evidence in the sport setting regarding the effectiveness of a transformational leadership approach to coaching (e.g., Charbonneau et al, 2001) and captaincy/player leadership (e.g., Smith, Arthur, Hardy, Callow, & Williams, 2013). Arthur et al (2012) theoretically delineated "the inspirational effects of coaches in sport" (p. 399); and outlined a transformational leadership model specific to elite sport. Their model emphasized the coaching roles of (i) creating an inspirational vision for the future (i.e., inspirational leadership, personal meaning), (ii) support to achieve the vision (i.e., motivational climate), and (iii) providing the challenge to achieve the vision (i.e., high performance expectations).…”

“…Transformational leadership involves coaches building relationships with players based on personal, emotional, and inspirational exchanges, with the goal of developing players to their fullest potential (Arthur et al, 2012;Callow et al, 2009). There is considerable evidence from the business and military domains (e.g., Bass & Riggio, 2006;Hardy et al, 2010), and growing evidence in the sport setting regarding the effectiveness of a transformational leadership approach to coaching (e.g., Charbonneau et al, 2001) and captaincy/player leadership (e.g., Smith, Arthur, Hardy, Callow, & Williams, 2013).…”

“…The following recommendations are offered for consideration by team sport coaches: (i) involve athletes in meaningful leadership roles via a version of the dual-management model, (ii) adopt a mindset for transformational leadership via a focus on individual consideration, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, fostering acceptance of group goals, high performance expectations, and appropriate role modeling (see Arthur et al, 2012;Hardy et al, 2010;Smith et al, 2013, for practical examples), (iii) learn how to be an emotionally intelligent coach by developing intrapersonal and interpersonal competencies of perceiving emotions in self and others (see Chan & Mallett, 2011, for practical examples), and (iv) implement autonomy-supportive coaching strategies (see Lyons et al, 2012;Mageau & Vallerand, 2003;Mallett, 2005, for practical examples).…”

The Leader Ship Is Sinking: A Temporal Investigation of Narcissistic Leadership

“…Indeed, followers find visionary leaders more appealing than representative leaders who focus on their group's collective identity (Halevy, Berson, & Galinsky, 2011). Besides vision, transformational leadership also comprises strong support and challenge components (Arthur, Hardy, & Woodman, 2012;Hardy et al, 2010), both of which could be particularly crucial beyond the initial stage of leadership. For example, individual consideration is a support component of transformational leadership, and narcissists' relative lack of individual consideration (Khoo & Burch, 2008) may well contribute to the eventual decay of their leadership effectiveness.…”