The nature of athlete leadership.

Loughead, Todd M. ; Hardy, James ; Eys, Mark A. 等

Leadership has been assigned great importance in sport by athletes, coaches, and spectators (Chelladurai & Riemer, 1998). Despite the value placed on leadership, Riemer and Chelladurai (1995) noted that leadership research in sport has been sparse and sporadic. In fact, the majority of leadership research in sport has focused on the coach (see Chelladurai, 1994; Chelladurai & Riemer, 1998 for reviews). This is not surprising given that the coach is typically the one responsible for making final decisions in regard to several team matters (e.g., strategy, tactics, team personnel). Nonetheless, there is another important source of leadership within teams--the athletes. Gould, Hodge, Peterson, and Peflichkoff (1987) noted coaches believe athlete leadership to be an important component for effective team performance. Further to this, Glenn and Horn (1993) suggested that coaches require one or two athletes within the team who can provide motivation and direction to their teammates. Therefore, it is not surprising that coaches conventionally either have team elections or appoint an athlete to serve as captain (or assistant captain) in order to provide leadership to the team.

The designation of an athlete as captain may be viewed from a role perspective as fulfilling a formal function (Loughead & Hardy, 2005). A formal leader can be viewed as an individual who has been prescribed that position by the organization (e.g., coach) or group (e.g., team elections). However, the election or appointment of a formal leader does not ensure that the leadership provided will be effective or fulfill team leadership needs (Glenn & Horn, 1993). Mabry and Barnes (1980) identified another type of role that an individual can occupy within a group--informal role. An informal role (in this case an informal leader) emerges as a result of the interactions that occur among group members. Taken together, athletes who occupy either a formal or informal leadership role within their team represent a source of athlete leadership.

To date, research examining athlete leadership has mostly been descriptive in nature. Yukelson, Weinberg, Richardson, and Jackson (1983) examined the characteristics of collegiate athletes who were rated high as leaders compared to those rated lower in leadership status. The results showed that athletes scoring high in leadership status, as rated by their peers, tended to be better performers, had more seniority on their team, and had a greater internal locus of control than teammates who were rated low in leadership status. Another line of study in athlete leadership has been to examine the playing position of team captains (i.e., formal leaders). Lee, Coburn, and Partridge (1983) hypothesized that soccer players occupying a central playing position (i.e., center fullback, midfield) were more likely to be designated team captains since they occupied positions requiring high interactions with others. The results showed that for professional soccer teams, captains were more likely to occupy the center fullback position, whereas in high school teams, captains were more likely to be center fullbacks or midfielders. Taken together, the results indicated that captains were more likely to occupy central playing positions on soccer teams regardless of the level of competition. Finally, Tropp and Landers (1979) examined both formal and informal leadership in collegiate female field hockey players. Contrary to Lee et al., the results showed that captains were not as likely to be playing a high-interacting position (e.g., center halfback, center fullback).

Although previous research does provide some insights into athlete leadership, this body of literature does have its shortcomings. A first shortcoming has been the lack of a clear and consistent definition of athlete leadership. This lack of definitional clarity has led to inconsistent measurement of the construct, which in turn has led to research findings that cannot be compared to one another. In an attempt to remedy this situation, it may be beneficial to look at broader definitions of leadership. In fact, over the last five decades there have been approximately 65 different taxonomies used to define leadership (Fleishman, Mumford, Zaccaro, Levin, Korotkin, & Hein, 1991). Despite the various ways leadership has been conceptualized, Northouse (2001) identified several components that are central to leadership: (a) leadership is a process, (b) leadership involves influence, (c) leadership occurs within a group context, and (d) leadership involves goal attainment. Using these components, Northouse defined leadership as "a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal" (p. 3). Consequently, when leadership is defined in this manner, it becomes available to everyone, meaning that it is not restricted to only the formal designated leader(s) of a group (Northouse, 2001). That is, leadership not only involves formal leaders (e.g., coach, team captains) but also informal leaders--those individuals who are not designated as leaders by the organization and their role is not related to a formal position within the organization hierarchy (Neubert, 1999). Therefore, athlete leadership maybe viewed as an athlete occupying a formal or informal role within a team who influences a group of team members (i.e., a minimum of two team members) to achieve a common goal.

A second shortcoming of previous athlete leadership research has been to focus primarily on one function of the leadership role--task related functions. However, many researchers studying groups readily agree that leaders serve two important functions internal to the team: (a) task functions (e.g., helping the group accomplish its task objectives), and (b) social functions (e.g., satisfying member needs) (Carton, Hausenblas, & Eys, 2005; Kegler Hill, 2001; Rees, 1983). The notion that leaders can occupy specific and varying roles within a team, known as role differentiation, was examined by Rees and Segal (1984). They examined the two internal functions (i.e., task and social functions) of athlete leaders on two collegiate football teams. Overall, they found that all of the task leaders were starters, while the social leaders were equally divided between starters and non-starters. In addition, they found that task leaders were spread out amongst seniors, juniors, and sophomores, 33%, 56%, and 11% respectively and that social leaders were mostly seniors (90%).

Related to the above point, a third shortcoming is that research involving athlete leadership has focused almost exclusively on the internal leadership functions. Leaders serve two critical functions internal to the team--a task function and a social function. However, the examination of only internal functions is somewhat limiting since Kogler Hill (2001) has suggested that when the research focus moves from the laboratory to the more naturalistic field setting, a third critical leadership function related to the external environment is present. Thus, in addition, to having to deal with the internal needs of the group (task and social issues); a leader may also have to assist the group to adapt and cope with the external environment. In fact, Mosher (1979) noted that one of the roles of team captains on sport teams was to represent the team at external functions such as receptions, meetings, and press conferences.

A fourth shortcoming is that the majority of studies examining athlete leadership have utilized a cross-sectional design (e.g., Glenn & Horn, 1993; Lee et al., 1983; Rees & Segal, 1984; Yukelson et al., 1983), meaning that they have examined this construct at only one moment in time--either prior to the start of the season or during the season. Consequently, this begs the question as to whether there are changes in athlete leadership status over the course of the season. This is based on the premise that leadership is an ongoing process whereby all members have the opportunity to engage in this process and assist the team to adapt to changing situations (Kogler Hill, 2001). Furthermore, a group is dynamic in nature meaning that it changes over time as members join or leave the group, as norms and roles develop, and as the group's foci changes from one task to another (Forsyth, 1998). For example, a sport team may shift focus over the course of the season from learning strategic plays to implementing and executing the plays in a real-life competitive context.

A final shortcoming is the absence of research examining the relative influence of athlete leadership within a team. While every team member can theoretically become a leader (Northouse, 2001); some athlete leaders' influence will be more dominant than others. Thus, their ability to influence a larger number of teammates is greater. Therefore, these individuals offer a more pronounced leadership role within a team, which we have labeled team leader since a majority of team members are in agreement as to the leadership provided by these individuals. On the other hand, there are individuals who offer leadership to a fewer number of teammates. While their influence may not be as widespread as team leaders, this type of leadership still can exert influence on its group members; which we have labeled peer leadership. Although no research has attempted to explicitly distinguish between team and peer leaders, it appears that Rees and Segal (1984) may have inadvertently made a distinction between team and peer leaders. The authors asked collegiate football players from two teams to list five team members who exhibited the highest amounts of task and social leadership. The results showed that a total of 40 players out of 101 surveyed were nominated at least once for either type of leadership. However, Rees and Segal noted "it is still unreasonable to count as leaders all 40 players nominated" (p. 115). As a result, they examined only those athletes they called "top leaders"--the ten athletes scoring the highest in social leadership and the ten athletes scoring the highest in task leadership. It could be argued that those 40 athletes that were initially nominated were indeed peer leaders while the "top leaders", given that they were nominated the most, could in fact be considered team leaders. However, the question then arises: Why were the top 10 chosen as team leaders? Why not the top 5? By arbitrarily choosing the number of athletes as team leaders, the likelihood that some athletes may be misclassified is increased--those athletes who should be considered team leaders are not and those athletes who are may not have the consensus of their teammates to truly be considered a team leader. The issue then becomes how much agreement or consensus is required for an athlete to be considered a team leader? One of the most common methods for measuring consensus is calculating the percentage of individuals within a population (e.g., team) who endorse a particular belief (e.g., leadership) (Conway & Schaller, 1998). In fact, Shaw (1981) suggested 50% agreement should be the minimum standard for a belief to be considered as consensus. Consequently, a minimum of 50% agreement was required for an athlete to be considered a team leader. On the other hand, a peer leader can be viewed as an athlete who influenced at least two teammates.

Given the aforementioned shortcomings, the purpose of the present study was threefold. The first purpose was to examine some of the characteristics of identified team and peer leaders serving task, social, and external leadership functions. More specifically, the formalization of the athletes' leadership roles (i.e., formal vs. informal), starting status, and tenure on team were the characteristics that were assessed. Consequently, a number of hypotheses were put forth. Using previous research by Loughead and Hardy (2005) as a basis, it was hypothesized that athlete leaders would occupy both informal and formal roles on their respective teams. Also, based on research previously outlined by Rees and Segal (1984) and Yukelson et al. (1983), it was hypothesized that individuals with longer tenure on their teams would more likely be identified as leaders. Furthermore, based on the work of Rees and Segal, it was hypothesized that starters (as compared to non-starters) would be more likely to occupy leadership roles. However, no specific a priori hypotheses were advanced for each type of leadership function (task, social, and external).

A second purpose was to determine the amount of team and peer leadership present on interactive sport teams. Given that the present study examined team and peer leadership within a variety of interactive team sports (e.g., hockey, basketball) with varying roster sizes, it is important to have a statistic that is usable with a wide range of group sizes when interested in quantifying the number of team and peer leaders. One approach used in the organizational literature has been to divide the number of peer leaders by the number of group members. This method has been termed leader dispersion (Neubert, 1999), and may be viewed as the concentration of leaders within the group. Accordingly, team and peer leader dispersion values were calculated for the three functions of leadership. Due to a lack of prior research in this area, no a priori hypotheses were advanced.

A third purpose was to determine the stability of team and peer leadership over time. That is, whether athletes identified as leaders at the start of the season were also recognized as providing leadership at the end of the season. In order to provide more detailed information, the characteristics and dispersion values of team and peer leaders across the three leadership functions (task, social, and external) were also examined at these two different time points. As noted earlier, previous athlete leadership studies in sport has been cross-sectional in nature. Thus, given the exploratory nature of the present study using a prospective design to examine leadership stability, no a priori hypotheses were proposed.

Method

Participants

The participants were 258 varsity student athletes (140 males and 118 females) from two Canadian universities representing a total of thirteen teams; seven teams consisted of female athletes and six of male athletes. The mean age of the participants was 20.6 years (SD = 2.10, range = 17-31 yrs). To enhance the generalizability of the results, the athletes represented a variety of interactive team sports including rugby (n = 69), soccer (n = 57), field lacrosse (n = 37), volleyball (n = 40), ice hockey (n = 21), field hockey (n = 19), and basketball (n = 15). On average, the athletes had participated in their respective sport for 9.20 years (SD = 4.47). As for tenure on current team, there were 94 first-year players, 76 second-year players, 58 third-year, 26 fourth-year players, and four fifth-year players. The study utilized a prospective design to allow for the examination of leadership at two times in the season; a total of 258 participants completed the measures at Time 1 and 171 at Time 2 from the thirteen teams sampled.

In order to determine if there were systematic explanations for the attrition rate (34%) in participants a review of demographic characteristics was conducted across time periods. The results demonstrated that those athletes who missed the second data collection period were similar to those who were present. More specifically, demographic information for those not completing Time 2 information was proportionally equivalent to the original Time 1 sample with regard to gender, age, sport type, and tenure on their respective teams.

Measures

Athlete leadership was measured by having the participants list all of the athlete leaders on their respective teams. In order to measure the three functions of leaders (task, social, and external leadership), three separate questions were asked. Specifically, participants were asked to "List the names of team members (including yourself if applicable) you feel most strongly contribute to your team's task/social/external factors. That is, please list team members who do or have done at least one, some, or all of the following actions." Following these instructions a list of behavioral characteristics of task, social, and external leadership were provided to give the participants a frame of reference (see Table 1). These behavioral characteristics were adapted from Kogler Hill's (2001) team leadership model and a previous version of the survey piloted with a university aged, mixed gender soccer team resulted in minor changes being suggested. Participants were given ample space to list the names of individuals who performed these tasks. As well, basic descriptive data were also collected on each participant that included age, gender, sport, competitive level, starting status, formal leadership status (e.g., captain, assistant captain), and tenure on the team.

Participants' responses were first scored via raw frequencies. In other words, team leaders were classified as such if at least half of their team members who responded to the questionnaire endorsed them as a task, social, or external leader. Conversely, task, social, or external peer leaders were classified as such if at least two team members endorsed them as leaders. In order to create dispersion values, the number of identified peer and team task, social, and external leaders were then divided by respective team sizes. Specifically, team size was operationalized as team roster size (Carron, Hausenblas, & Eys, 2005).

Procedures

Coaches were contacted to outline the study and ask permission to administer the survey to the athletes on their teams. After securing approval from the coaches, athletes were approached by the researchers and a complete description of the project was provided. Informed consent was implied through completion of the questionnaire. Specifically, the participants were informed that they would need to complete the questionnaire once at the beginning of the season--at least three weeks into the season (Time 1) and the same questionnaire would again be administered within three weeks of the end of the regular season (Time 2). The timing of the questionnaire at Time 1 allowed for athletes to develop perceptions of who were the team and peer leaders. The timing of the questionnaire at Time 2 provided an equal basis for comparison since not all of the teams would have qualified for a spot in post-season play and could potentially confound the findings. Participants were assured anonymity and confidentiality of their responses. The two administrations of the questionnaires occurred at the convenience of the team, usually following a practice session and lasted approximately 20 minutes.

Results

Description of Task Athlete Leadership

Team task leaders. Overall, the results at Time 1 showed a team task leadership dispersion ratio of. 15--indicating that 15% of athletes were viewed as a task leader at the team level (see Table 2 for a summary of dispersion values). In terms of the characteristics of these task team leaders, approximately two thirds (65%) served a formal leadership role (i.e., captain or assistant captain) within the team. In addition, nearly all of these task team leaders were starters and three quarters of them were either in their third (49%) or fourth (26%) season on the team. A summary of the personal characteristics of athlete leaders is provided in Table 3. As can be seen from Tables 2 and 3, a similar picture for team leader dispersion and leadership characteristics emerged at Time 2.

Peer task leaders. A peer leader dispersion value of .35 was found at Time 1 indicating that 35% of athletes were viewed as peer leaders on their respective teams. Two-thirds (66%) of these peer task leaders were informal leaders. That is, they did not hold any formal leadership designation within the team such as captain or assistant captain. A large majority of these players were starters (81%) and their tenure varied with 40% in their third season, a quarter (26%) in their fourth season, and another quarter (24%) in their second season with their team. Inspection of Table 2 and 3 revealed a similar pattern for peer task leaders at Time 2.

Stability of team and peer task leadership. The results showed there were a total of 40 team task leaders. In particular, the results indicated that 73% of the team task leaders were nominated at both Time 1 and Time 2, while 23% were only nominated at time 1, and 4% were only nominated at Time 2. As for peer task leadership, a total of 88 peer task leaders were identified. Specifically, the results indicated a total of 70% of peer task leaders were nominated at both Time 1 and Time 2, 13% were nominated only at Time 1 and 17% only at Time 2. Taken together the results suggest that the majority of athletes identified as team or peer task leaders at the beginning of the season were likely to be identified again as task leaders near the end of the season.

Description of Social Athlete Leadership

Team social leaders. The results from Time 1 showed a team social leadership dispersion ratio of .11. Thus, 11% of athletes were viewed as team social leaders. With regard to the characteristics of these leaders, just over half (57%) served a formal leadership role (i.e., captain or assistant captain) within the team, nearly all were starters (93%), and over two-thirds (70%) were in their third or fourth season with their respective teams. The data collected at Time 2 displayed a compatible set of results to those just described for Time 1.

Peer social leaders. The results obtained for Time 1 revealed a peer social leadership dispersion ratio of .47--that is, nearly half of the athletes were viewed as a peer social leader. Nearly three-quarters of these peer social leaders (74%) were informal leaders, two-thirds (66%) were starters, and just over half (55%) were in their third or fourth season with their team. Again, results associated with Time 2 illustrated a similar description of peer social leaders to those previously depicted for Time 1.

Stability of team and peer social leadership. The results revealed that 32 athletes were nominated as team social leaders. More specifically, 53% of these team social leaders were nominated at both Time 1 and Time 2, 22% were nominated only at Time I, and 25% at Time 2 only. For peer social leadership, there were a total of 117 peer social leaders. In particular, 62% of peer social leaders were nominated at both Time 1 and Time 2, 21% were nominated only at Time 1 and 17% for Time 2 only. The overall results suggest that the majority of athletes identified as team or peer social leaders at the beginning of the season are likely to be identified again as (team or peer) leaders near the end of the season. However, it would appear that team, and to a lesser extent peer social leadership, was not as stable across the season as task leadership.

Description of External Athlete Leadership

Team external leaders. For Time 1, a team external leadership dispersion ratio of .08 was found, indicating that 8% of athletes were viewed as team external leaders. A large majority of these team external leaders (79%) were formal leaders, almost all were starters, and most were either in their third or fourth season with their respective teams (88%). As with the task and social leadership functions, Time 2 data for team leaders for the external function was congruent with Time 1.

Peer external leaders. The Time I results revealed a peer external leadership dispersion ratio of .31--thus, 31% of athletes were viewed as peer external leaders. Results indicated that nearly two-thirds (63%) of these peer leaders had an informal leadership role within their team and three-quarters of these athletes (75%) were starters. With regard to team tenure, a little less than two-thirds (62%) of these identified leaders were either third or fourth year players. Similar set of results were exhibited for peer external leaders identified at Time 2.

Stability of team and peer external leadership. A total of 24 athletes were identified as team external leaders. More specifically, it was found that 71% of team external leaders were nominated at both Time 1 and Time 2, 13% were nominated only at time 1, and 16% only at Time 2. For peer external leadership, there were a total of 81 peer external leaders; 58% were nominated at both Time 1 and Time 2, 26% were nominated only at Time 1, and 16% only at Time 2. Similar to task and social leadership, the results for external leadership suggested that the majority of athletes identified as team or peer leaders at the beginning of the season were also likely to be identified as team or peer external leaders, respectively, near the end of the season.

Discussion

The purpose of the present study was three-fold. The first purpose was to examine the personal characteristics of both team and peer leaders. The second purpose was to determine the amount of team and peer leadership on interactive sport teams. Finally, the third purpose was to assess the stability of team and peer leadership over the course of a season. In general, the presence of both team and peer leaders in each of the three leadership functions (i.e., task, social, external) was found. In this regard, the results of the present study are similar to those of Rees and Segal (1984) who examined both task and social athlete leaders. The present study, however, extended the current literature as this was the first in-depth investigation to (a) draw a distinction between and assess team and peer athlete leaders, and (b) determine the presence of external leaders in sport.

Insofar as the first purpose is concerned, the present study examined several personal characteristics of athlete leaders both at the team and peer levels. It was hypothesized that formal and informal leaders would occupy leadership roles with sport teams. Overall, the results replicated Loughead and Hardy's (2005) finding that both team captains and other teammates were sources of leadership. However, the present study extended the current knowledge base by finding that regardless of leadership function (task, social, external), formal leaders (e.g., captains) were more likely to be identified as team leaders. As Mosher (1979) suggested, formal leaders (i.e., captains) are members of both the team and the coaching staff. Given that the formal leader may be viewed as a member of both parties, he/she serves as a liaison between the coaching staff and players. Therefore, from an athlete's perspective it appears that it is important to have athlete leaders who have the consensus of their teammates to represent them. Thus, it could be hypothesized that it is important for players to elect their captains as opposed to having the coaching staff unilaterally appoint the captain. This could have important ramifications in fostering effective communication between the athletes and the coaching staff.

On the other hand, informal leaders or those without a formal designation were more likely to be viewed as peer leaders by their teammates. Research in business and industry has shown that informal leaders play an important role in groups containing formal leaders (Wheelan & Johnston, 1996). That is, informal leaders significantly influenced the group's activities, created aspects of the group's culture, and influenced the group's processes and structure. As Pescosolido (2002) noted, informal leaders assist group members in making sense of ambiguous scenarios. For instance, an athlete may receive instructions from the coach and may not fully understand them, thus he/she will be inclined to ask one of their peer leaders for clarification. Taken together, it seems reasonable to assume that both types of leadership--formal and informal--play an important role in effective group functioning.

Insofar as tenure is concerned, it was hypothesized the longer athletes were members of a team, the more likely they would be identified as a leader. The results offered partial support for this hypothesis. It was consistently found that the majority of team and peer leaders identified were third-year players, followed almost equally by either second or fourth year players regardless of leadership function. The dynamic nature of leadership may help explain the finding that athletes in a leadership role were seldom in their first-year with the team. For example, first-year athletes are new to their teams, need to learn the teams' dynamics (e.g., norms, goals), as well as earn or prove their leadership capabilities to the rest of the group. By the time an athlete has reached second-year, they begin to emerge as an athlete leader. Then, by the third year, team and peer leaders have solidified their status within the team; hence the propensity for athlete leaders to be in their third season with the team. Finally, if an athlete remains with the team into their fourth and fifth seasons, they appear to maintain a leadership role (despite their reduced numbers on team rosters). It should be noted that this is a somewhat speculative explanation as the present study was not a multi-year longitudinal design. The adoption of such a design is a possible avenue for future research to consider. It should also be noted that the number of fifth year players in the present study was low. It is possible that the majority of players at this level, while allowed to compete for five years, take the opportunity to play for four years.

Support was found for the hypothesis that starters would be more likely to fulfill leadership roles within their respective teams. Furthermore, being a starter was more pronounced for those nominated as a team leader. Specifically, being a starter and a team leader was most prominent for task leaders, followed by external leaders, and social leaders. Given that one of the objectives of varsity sports is successful performance--a task related outcome--it is not surprising that the two task-related functions (task and external) of leadership had the highest proportion of starters (who are usually the individuals most likely to perform successfully). Based on these current and past results (e.g., Rees & Segal, 1984), it appears that athletic ability (e.g., being a starter) is important given that these task leaders must lead their team onto the playing surface and have the respect of fellow team members. This would be particularly difficult if the task leader had reduced abilities. Although the majority of social leaders were also starters, it was less definitive clear cut than task and external leadership. This result is somewhat similar to Rees and Segal (1984) who found half of the social leaders nominated were starters. The small reduction in being a starter and a social leader may be related to the nature of goal-directed groups (e.g., sport teams). While it appears that it is essential to have task leaders that are starters, having starters as social leaders may not be as crucial since team member relational activities can occur outside of the playing surface.

The study's second purpose was related to the quantity of team and peer leaders. Due to the more stringent agreement levels required (i.e., at least 50% of teammates) as well as the predominantly formalized leader composition of team leaders, the fewest number of athlete leaders and lowest dispersion values occurred at this level. With regard to the three leadership functions, it is interesting to note that there were fewer athletes who occupied the external leadership role compared to task and social leaders. This could be related to the fact that the task and social leaders are internal to the team, whereas the external leaders' functions are for the most part related to external functions such as promoting the team within the community. Therefore, less athlete leaders are required to fulfill this external function. Nonetheless, the finding of the presence of external leaders empirically confirms the notion that athletes perform functions outside of the team similar to what Mosher (1979) proposed for the sport of volleyball.

As for the number of athlete leaders, the results in the present study distinguishing between team and peer leaders expanded the unidimensional approach (examining athlete leadership in general) employed by Loughead and Hardy (2005) who found that approximately 27% of athletes were nominated as athlete leaders by their teammates. Together the two studies' results suggest that while theoretically every team member can be a leader (Northouse, 2001), it is clear that not everyone assumes or carries out a leadership role on their team. Future research should examine whether there is an ideal number of athlete leaders for a team and if the quantity of team and/or peer leaders influences individual (e.g., satisfaction) and team level outcomes (e.g., team effectiveness, cohesion).

As previously noted, the third purpose of the present study was to determine the stability of athlete leadership over the course of a season. In general, the results indicated that those athletes who were nominated as either team or peer leaders at the beginning of the season (i.e., Time 1) were highly likely to remain a leader near the end of the season (i.e., Time 2) regardless of leadership function (task, social, external). Although this would suggest that leadership is static in nature, closer examination of the results indicated that while there is a core group of athletes who fulfill a leadership role throughout the season, there is some turnover. That is to say that some team and peer leaders were only nominated at the beginning of the season and a smaller number only nominated near the end of the season. Given the dynamic nature of groups (Forsyth, 1998), it follows that a team's leadership also changes to some extent. This could be related to the fact that depending on the team's need at a particular moment in time, athlete leadership may change or remain stable. For instance, teams that have an excellent chance of capturing a championship may decide to play their veterans more than their rookies. Consequently, there would be very little change in athlete leadership. On the other hand, a team that will not be participating in post-season competition may decide to play more of the freshman or junior players; thus increasing the likelihood of these players emerging as either team or peer leaders.

One limitation to the present study was that the findings were based on a sample of varsity collegiate team sports. Consequently, it is recommended that future research examine athlete leadership at other levels of competition. In particular, the investigation of athlete leadership in more developed or established teams (e.g., professional sport) is needed. It would be particularly interesting to examine personal characteristics, such as team tenure or experience, in relation to team leaders at the professional level as it is quite possible for a newly acquired player with several seasons of experience playing at the same level to immediately step into a leadership position. Nonetheless, the results of this study offer preliminary support for the presence of team and peer leaders who fulfill task, social, and external leadership functions. It is hoped that the results of the present study will stimulate systematic research in this emerging area.

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Todd M. Loughead

University of Windsor, Canada

James Hardy

University of Wales Bangor, U.K.

Mark A. Eys

Laurentian University, Canada

Address Correspondence To: Todd Loughead, Department of Kinesiology, University of Windsor, 401 Sunset Avenue, Windsor, Ontario, Canada, N9B 3P4 Email: loughead@uwindsor.ca Fax: (519) 973-7056

Table 1
List of Behavioral Characteristics of Task Social, and External
Leaders Provided to the Participants

 Task Leaders Social Leaders External Leaders

* Helps focus the * Contributes to * Promotes the team well
team on its goals harmony within the within the community
 team (e.g., city or campus
 communities)

* Helps to clarify * Ensures teammates * Represents the team's
responsibilities for are unsolved and interests in meetings
teammates included in team with coaching staff or
 events league organizers

* Assists in decision * Helps solve * Attempts to secure
making interpersonal necessary or desired
 conflicts that may resources, support, and
 arise within the recognition for the team
 team (e.g, organizes &
 participates in
 fundraising)

* Offers instruction * Offers support * Buffers team members
to teammates when and is busted by from outside
required teammates distractions (e. g.,
 media, financial/budget
 issues)

Table 2.
Dispersion Coefficients for Team and Peer Leadership

 Time 1 Time 2

 Team Peer Team Peer
 Leader Leader Leader Leader

Task Leadership .15 .35 .15 .36
Social Leadership .11 .47 .12 .45
External Leadership .08 .31 .10 .29

Table 3
Personal Characteristics of Team and Peer Leaders

 Task Leadership Social Leadership

 Time 1 Time 2 Time 1 Time 2

 TLs PLs TLs PLs TLs PLs TLs PLs

Formalized role
Formal 65 34 72 34 57 26 56 27
Informal 35 66 28 66 43 74 44 73
Starting status
Starter 95 81 94 7 93 66 85 79
Non-starter 5 19 6 27 7 34 15 21
Tenure on team
First season 7 7 9 14 3 13 4 14
Second season 11 24 9 23 17 29 8 24
Third season 49 40 41 34 50 36 44 40
Fourth season 26 26 28 22 20 19 36 16
Fifth season 7 3 13 3 10 3 8 6

 External Leadership

 Time 1 Time 2

 TLs PLs TLs PLs

Formalized role
Formal 79 37 81 42
Informal 21 63 19 58
Starting status
Starter 88 75 94 78
Non-starter 34 25 6 22
Tenure on team
First season 0 9 0 5
Second season 4 24 5 22
Third season 46 37 43 42
Fourth season 42 25 33 23
Fifth season 8 5 19 8

Note. The numbers included in the table are percentages.
TLs = team leaders and PLs = peer leaders.