Transformational leadership in sport: current status and future directions

Abstract

Borrowed from organizational psychology, the concept of transformational leadership has now been applied to a sport context for a decade. Our review covers and critically discusses empirical articles published on this growing topic. However, because the majority of studies used cross-sectional designs and single-source questionnaires to tap what has been a fuzzy construct, current theoretical and methodological issues impede understanding of whether transformational leadership matters for sport outcomes. To make a difference to applied practice and policy, the transformational leadership construct requires a refined definition and stronger empirical tests allowing for robust causal inference. We highlight avenues for advancing research on transformational leadership in the sport context.

Lead Me to Train Better: Transformational Leadership’s Moderation of the Negative Relationship Between Athlete Personality and Training Behaviors

“…Another limitation regards the use of single source data in study 1. For example, Arthur, Bastardoz, and Eklund (2017) argued that majority of transformational leadership research has also used single-source data sets leading to concerns regarding causality (see also van Knippenberg & Sitkin, 2013). In addressing this, in study 2 we obtained objective data from the coaches regarding the athletes' training behaviours.…”

Transformational Teaching, Self-Presentation Motives, and Identity in Adolescent Female Physical Education

“…Transformational leadership has been conceptualised through its distinct behavioural dimensions or as a global construct (e.g., Beauchamp, et al 2010). Employing a differentiated approach is typically optimal (Arthur, Bastardoz, & Eklund, 2017), however global conceptualisations are appropriate for use during early examination phases of research questions and/or when relatively complex models are being tested (Arthur & Tomsett, 2014).…”

“…Secondly, we operationalized transformational leadership as a global construct; an approach that has been described as somewhat crude (c.f., Arthur et al, 2017;Arthur & Tomsett, 2014). Although this approach was justified in the current research given the complex nature and novelty, future research is required to test whether some of the different transformational leader behaviours have different relationships with the outcomes variables examined.…”

A grounded theory of inspirational coach leadership

“…Research in sport by Turnnidge and Côté has further highlighted how coaches can show TFL behaviors to inspire followers (eg, by discussing goals and expectations). However, while TFL provides useful suggestions into how inspiration can be evoked by leaders, there are several theoretical issues with TFL that have been identified in contemporary reviews within organizational and sport literature. Specifically, these reviews propose that TFL is a fuzzy construct that lacks a clear and consistent definition and underpinning theory that explains what TFL is and how TFL impacts on outcomes …”

“…The theoretical problems are highlighted by measurement issues, whereby research often finds consistently high intercorrelations between the proposed distinct dimensions of TFL, which does not support the proposed multidimensionality of TFL . To explain this, Arthur, Bastardoz, and Eklund highlight that TFL uses tautological definitions, where transformational leaders are described based upon their impacts on followers, which prohibits TFL being used as an independent variable in quantitative research. An example of this tautology is inspirational motivation.…”