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European Journal of Experimental Biology, 2012, 2 (4):1012-1017
ISSN: 2248 –9215
CODEN (USA): EJEBAU
1012
Pelagia Research Library
Relationship between Coach's Leadership Styles and Group Cohesion in the
teams participating in the 10
th
Sport Olympiad of male Students
Mohsen Vahdani
1
, Reza Sheikhyousefi
1
, Mehrdad Moharramzadeh
2
, Ali Ojaghi
1
, Mir
Hamid Salehian
3
1
Department of Physical Education, Shabestar branch, Islamic Azad University, Shabestar, Iran
2
Department of Physical Education, Uromieh branch, Islamic Azad University, Uromieh, Iran
3
Department of Physical Education, Tabriz branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran
______________________________________________________________________________
ABSTRACT
The present study examined the relationship between coach's leadership styles and group cohesion in the individual
and group teams participating in the 10
th
sport olympiad of male students. 321 students (N=1906 selected as sample
of this study. Athletes completed two instruments in this study; Leadership Scale for Sport and the Group
Environment Questionnaire. The LSS contains 40 items that measures five dimensions of leadership styles and The
GEQ with 18 items assess the two dimensions group cohesion. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was utilized to examine
the internal reliability of LSS (r=0.85) and GEQ (r=0.72). Data were analyzed with one-sample kolmogrov-
smirnov, repeated measures ANOVA, Bonfferoni post hoc test, Pearson Correlation coefficient, and T-test (for
independent groups), in significance level of P≤0.05. Result showed that coaches exhibited higher in training and
instruction and lower in autocratic style among both interactive group teams and co-acting teams. Result showed
that there are no significant differences in task and social level's of interactive group teams and co-acting teams.
Results showed coach’s styles of training and instruction, democratic, social support and positive feedback were all
positively correlated to group cohesion and autocratic style negatively correlated to group cohesion.
Key words: Coach's Leaderships Styles, group Cohesion, Sport Olympiad
______________________________________________________________________________
INTRODUCTION
According to Frast, among the three factors of athlete, coach, and spectator, coaches are the pivots and important
principles of sport teams. The coach is thought to be a powerful organizer and the basis of improvement [16].
Anshel (1997) believes that coaches can be examples of correct behavior for their followers [2]. Marthens’ view
point is that the coach’s leadership style is the method the coach obviously chooses to help the group in order to
carry on the assumed responsibilities and to meet the group’s needs as well [17]. Most of the successful coaches
make use of various coaching styles which are sometimes altered immediately. Effective leadership in sports results
from the application of various roles and styles to meet athlete’s needs and to reach the team’s objectives [2]. It is
necessary for coaches to pay attention not only to performance of athletic skills but also to mental skills of
individuals and the team. Therefore, paying attention to individual and group processes or the needs of individual
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et al Euro. J. Exp. Bio., 2012, 2 (4):1012-1017
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athletes and the team seems necessary and is a part of coach’s efficiency. Consistent research on coach’s leadership
style can help ameliorate his/her performance. Effective assessment of coach’s leadership style proves very effective
in bringing about athlete’s satisfaction as well as their good performance. As a result, coach’s behavior can have
important and determining role in athlete’s success and satisfaction [4]. Athletes’ groups can turn into a team
through a complimentary process. Though the formation of a team doesn’t always follow a step-by-step procedure,
there is a process through which a group of individuals gather and through a series multiple interactions, a unified
whole-i.e. a team- appears. The coach’s knowledge of group formation and sport can lead to application of solutions
that can help increase cohesion among team members [18]. Carron (1981) defines cohesion as dynamic process that
the group intent to empower intimicity, loyalty and integration. The authors specified two different cohesion:1.
Social cohesion as interpersonal attractiveness among team members and level that allows group to obtain its goal.
2. Task cohesion: objective evaluation by athletes of coordinated straggle or level that represents obtaining related
goals [7]. Cohesion is of extraordinary importance in dynamicity of the team and group in sports since, when it
comes to group processes, it has an overall effect on the number of individual variables such as unity, cooperation,
attempt and motivation. As a result, this process maintains not only individual output like satisfaction and
performance but also group output like team reinforcement and efficiency of performance [14].
We often hear the experts say a champion team can beat up a team consisting of champions, which is why team
cohesion can be as important as individual talents and abilities of team members [16]. Carron (1983) identified four
effective factors in team cohesion. Environmental factors; like cultural considerations of organizations and
geographical considerations. Personal factors; refer to individual characteristics, knowing, motivation and behavior.
Team factors; consist of group size, the complexity of group member’s roles, collective efficacy and group
member’s background. Finally leadership factors that include leadership styles and coach’s decisions, team members
personal relationships with each other and with coach and the relationships between the team and the coach. Thus,
coaches have the potential to affect group cohesion. These leadership factors may have either direct or indirect
influence, through individual interference or team factors [14]. Anshel (1997) believes that coaches pay certain
attention to team unity since they believe, it’s the basic principle behind team’s success, and therefore, they use
certain techniques to make sure that the spirit of intimacy and unity exists among team members [2]. It’s when a
coach’s role as a leader becomes apparent and prominent regarding team members’ cohesion.
Though there are abundant approaches concerning the leadership style and behavior in proposed texts, it seems that
relatively little research is done in this field due to lack of proposed theories and specialized models in sports field.
Through the use of multi-dimensional leadership design in sports, Chelladurai concludes that coach’s behavior
results from 3main variables of leader’s characteristics, the circumstance characteristics and member’s
characteristics. However, it seems that this approach contains limitations as well because this model has emphasized
on only two outcomes of coach’s behavior on athletes’ satisfaction and performance [15].
Horn (2002) designed a more complex model than those of Chelladurai and Carron which, in 3 parts, deals with
explanation on effective factors on coach behavior, coach behavior influence on athlete’s satisfaction and
performance, and indirect relationships between coach’s behavior and athlete’s performance [5]. In a study that was
carried out by Chelladurai and Carron (1978), it became clear that child athletes prefered relationship based
leadership style to that based on task. In other words, they needed coach’s friendship as an inseparable part of his
leading role. On the other hand, they found out that college athletes had lesser relationship needs and instead,
preferred task-based coach behavior [2].
The same researcher found out in a study in 1983 that social support leadership style was increasing progressively in
coaches ranging from junior high-school to university [9].This can be an expected style considering the increase in
mental maturity and task.
Serpa et al. (1991) in a study entitled leadership pattern in Handball international matches showed that both athletes
and coaches training and instruction style was the dominant style while autocratic style was used less [24]. Hosseini
(2010) showed in a study that coaches in Iranian Premier League used more of training and instruction leadership
style and less of Democratic style [15]. Chelladurai and some of his Japanese co-workers got some interesting
results regarding the relationship between culture and coach’s leadership style. Results showed that at academic
level, Canadian male athletes prefer the training and instruction style, democratic behavior and positive feedback
while Japanese are more in favor of autocratic and social support styles [11].
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Alferman (2005) suggested that in order to develop team skills in athletes of team sports, social support leadership
behavior was more effective while in individual fields, training and instruction style proved more efficient [1]. After
Carron et al. (1985) proposed a conceptual model of team cohesion, more studies were conducted, most of which
were concerned with effective factors on team cohesion. Moradi et al (2004) in “Iranian Basketball Premier League
Teams” and Hosseini (2010) in “Iranian football Premier League Teams” got similar results. Results showed that
except autocratic style that had negative and significant effect on group cohesion, other styles indicated a significant
and positive relationship [15, 19]. However, when studying the players in young adolescent’s football league,
Shamsaei (2007) found significant and negative relationship with group cohesion between autocratic and democratic
style. It seems that the reason for negative relationship between democratic styles with cohesion is the low level of
mental maturity and task in young adolescent players [28].
At the level of high school teams, Chaw (1999) found out that the high levels of task cohesion are related to training
and instruction leadership style and democratic style and high levels of social cohesion are related to democratic
relationship style, social support and positive feedback [10]. Though most of the conducted studies show
relationships between different types of coaches’ leadership styles with increase in cohesion among team members
in team sports, there are some contradictory results regarding this as well. For instance, Peace and Kozub (1994)
didn’t find a significant relationship between leadership behavioral dimensions and social cohesion in high school
girls’ basketball team [20]. At academic level, similar studies have been conducted. Catharine (2002) showed in
university football teams whose coaches use training and instruction, democratic, social support and positive
feedback styles, there are more cohesive teams [9]. Ronayne (2004), in a study entitled ”The effect of coach’s
behavior on team’s dynamicity in university sports team”, showed that there is positive correlation between athletes’
understanding of group cohesion during the season with their understanding of higher levels of democratic training
and instruction, social support and positive feedback styles [23]. Rebecca (2007) found a significant difference
between coaches’ and athletes’ approach to team cohesion [21]. Hans Lenk (1969), in his studies on two German
rowing teams, came to the conclusion that co-acting sport groups could achieve maximum performance results
despite severe internal conflicts. It means low group cohesion had positive effect on German Olympic rowing team
[2]. In the present study, coaches’ leadership styles are examined in5 style frameworks:1-training and instruction
style: is applied to all behavior that coach designs in order to improve athlete’s performance through technical
trainings and in group sports in order to coordinate team members’ activities. 2- Democratic style: is a behavior in
which the coach gives the athletes the permission to participate in decisions related to determining group aims and
the methods to achieve them. 3- Autocratic style: is reflected when coach separates him/ herself from the athletes
and emphasizes his/her power. 4- Social support style: relates to the issue that to what extent the coach is involved
in meeting the concerned athletes’ interactive needs and finally 5-Positive feedback style is the limit where the
coach, encourages and praises his athletes and admires their play and cooperation [18].
However, considering Carron’s model of team cohesion, group cohesion can be studied through the two dimensions
of social cohesion and task cohesion. Social cohesion means the degree of interpersonal interest among group
members, i.e. the degree to which group lets the individual achieve his favorite objective. In other words, task
cohesion shows the extent to which the team and group members can get their goals [6]. Most of conducted studies
and researches about leadership style and team cohesion are limited to a certain field and few studies have been done
comparing the two factors above in teams with interactions (group) like football and basketball and co-acting teams
(individual) like rowing and tennis, such a study has never been done in the country (Iran).
That’s why, in the present study, we deal with the relationship between coaches’ leadership style and team cohesion
of teams participating in the 10
th
athletic Olympiads for country boys which was hosted by Mazandaran University.
Furthermore, in this study, we compare the two factors of coaches’ leadership style and team cohesion in fields with
interacting groups and in co-acting (individual) fields.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
This research is descriptive and correlation and it is a field study from date gathering. The statistical population
involves students participated in the 10
th
sport olympiad of male students in Iran. 321 students (N=1906) selected as
sample of this study (M = 22.69 yrs, SD = 2.18).
Three instruments were used in the study: The Demographic Questionnaire, Leadership Scale for Sport [11] and the
Group Environment Questionnaire [8]. Each study participant completed a demographic questionnaire that asked
Mohsen Vahdani
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him to report age and academic background. The LSS measures five dimensions of leadership style - training and
instruction (TI) democratic style (DB), autocratic style (AB), social support (SS) and positive feedback (PF). The
LSS comes in three versions: the athlete's preference for coaching style, the athlete's perception for coaching style
and the coaches' perception of their own style. The athletes in this study only completed the athlete's perceived
coaching version. The athlete's perception version of LSS contains forty items prefaced by " My coach...", and is
followed by statements such as "sees to it that athletes work to capacity". Each it is scored on a 5-point Likert-type
scale ranging from "always" to "never." There are thirteen items for TI, nine items for DB, five items for AB, eight
items for SS and five items for PF. The psychometric properties of the LSS have been demonstrated in several
studies [11] . The GEQ assess the four dimensions of team cohesion - Individual Attraction to group task (ATG-T),
Individual Attraction to Group-Social (ATG-S), Group Integration-Task (GIT) and Group Integration-Social (GI-S).
The questionnaire contains 18 items that are scored on a 9-point Likert-type scale ranging from "strongly agree" to
"strongly disagree."Each item is either positively stated or negatively stated. The questionnaire has five items for
ATG-S, four items for ATG-T, five items for GI-T, and four items for GI-S. The score for each category is
calculated by summing the values and dividing by the number items in that category. Administration of the GEQ
and LSS occurred immediately following the end of season. The athletes were asked to indicate their coach's actual
style when filling out the LSS. Each gave approval gent on the head coaches’ approval. After practice, the coaches
or assistant coach brought the team together and questionnaire was always administered by the researcher. Players
first completed the demographic questionnaire, then the LSS questionnaire, and finally the GEQ. The instruments
were completed individually and anonymously, and the coaches did not have access to the individual informational
received. Data were analyzed with Kolmogrov-Smirnov, Pearson correlation coefficient, ANOVA, and Bonfferoni
post hoc test, T-test in significance level of P≤0.05.
RESULTS
- Scale Reliabilities
Previous LSS studies have generally indicated acceptable internal consistency scores for LSS scales, although some
problems with the Autocratic Style Scale have been reported [11]. In the present study, Cronbach's alpha coefficient
was utilized to examine the internal reliability of both scales. The internal reliability for the LSS and the GEQ is
represented in table 1 and 2.
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
Figure 1. Comparison of coach's leadership styles
P
ositive
feedback
Social
support
autocrat
ic
Democr
atic
Training and
instru
ction
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Table 1. Internal reliability scores for the LSS
LSS Scale Training and
Instruction
Democratic Style Autocratic Style Social Support Positive Feedback
Cronbach's Alpha 0.84 0.79 0.78 0.83 0.73
Table2. Internal reliability scores for GEQ
GEQ Scale Task Cohesion Social Cohesion
Cronbach's Alpha 0.72 0.73
After getting sure of giving data by using Kolmogrov-Smirnov test, they used parametric tests for data analysis. The
result of ANOVA showed that there are significance differences among leadership styles. In this research coaches
use training and instruction leadership styles more than autocratic leadership styles and this difference was also
significant (Figure 1).
The results of T-test showed there is not a significant difference between task and social cohesion of individual
teams to group teams.
Table3. Compare between cohesions dimensions in teams
cohesion dimensions groups M T df 0.34
Task Individual teams 6.64 0.95 319 0.34
Group teams 6.68
Social Individual teams 6.49 1.32 319 0.18
Group teams 6.65
The result of Pearson correlation coefficient test showed that there are positive and significance relationship among
task cohesion to training and instruction (r=0.49), Democratic (r=0.24), social support (r=0.25) and positive
feedback(r=0.34). And also there is positive and significance relationship among social cohesion to training and
instruction style (r=0.44), Democracy (r=0.17), social support (r=0.23) and positive feedback(r-0.29). On the other
hand there is not significance relationship among autocratic style to cohesion dimensions (table4).
Table4. Pearson correlation coefficient among leadership styles and group cohesion
Training and
Instruction Democratic Style Autocratic Style Social Support Positive Feedback
Task cohesion 0.49
*
0.24
*
-0.10 0.25
*
0.34
*
Social Cohesion 0.44
*
0.17
*
-0.14 0.23
*
0.29
*
Total cohesion 0.47
*
0.20
*
-0.12 0.25
*
0.31
*
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
The results of this research showed that coaches exhibited higher in training and instruction and lower in autocratic
style. In athletes viewpoints, they consider technical and tactical training of individuals and teams. Less autocratic
style indicate that the coaches allow athletes to participate in decision making related to determination of group
goals and goal achievement methods. Hoseini (2010) and Ramazaninezhad (2009) concluded that in professional
leagues volleyball and football teams use training and instruction mostly and they employ democratic style less.
Autocratic style is task based leadership method. Coach responsibility based style in professional and championship
sports has been reported in researches. The results of Hoseini (2010) and Ramazaninezhad (2009), Moradi (2009),
Rimmer and Chelladurai (1995) and Bennet&Maneual(2000) confirm these findings. According to the dynamic
nature of sport, training and instruction are common and the coaches concentrate on teaching of tactics and
techniques. of course, related to less usage of autocratic style by university coaches, the results are in agreement
with Moradi (2009), Rimmer and Chelladurai (1995) and Bennet & Maneual (2000). Hoseini (2010) and
Ramazaninezhad (2009) donot agree with these results. They reported that the coaches of volleyball and football
leagues use less democratic style .It seems that type of sport and also level of teams cause this difference in using
autocratic and democratic leadership styles.
Other research's result showed there is no significant difference between task and social cohesion of individual
teams to group teams. Considering this point that this research is alone in many different fields and checked samples
were the college students who were hailfellow. There was no significant differences in group cohesion of group
teams to individual teams. Results showed coach’s styles of training and instruction, democratic, social support and
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positive feedback were all positively correlated to group cohesion and autocratic style negatively correlated to group
cohesion that agrees with findings of, Katarine (2002), Moradi (2004), Shamsaei (2007), Hoseini (2010) and
Ramazaninezhad (2010).They found that there is a significant relationship among training and practice ,democratic
leadership styles and social support ,positive feed back to cohesion. While, there is a negative relationship among
autocratic style to team cohesion. Training and instruction, democracy and social support require collaboration and
interaction and involvement of the athletes that it leads to increate in team cohesion. So asserting propositional
Carron (1982) can belt old that leadership is one of the important and effecting for group cohesions of teams
.Coaches who use mostly training and instruction, democratic, social support and positive feedback styles and less
from autocratic style, have teams with more cohesion.
Finally, we proffer to leaders to make a suitable social-mental environment to obtain team aims. Coaches should
using suitable leadership styles in different cases to afford athlete's needs, make players familiar with their teamer's
responsibilities, and while playing and teaching use positive feedback. They should meet athletes’ needs and get
familiar the athletes with their responsibilities by using best leadership style. The coaches should contact with
athletes and have their personal information and try to empower their strong points and eliminate weak points by
offering optimal technical and tactical plans.
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