Introduction
Leadership is a critical management process that helps direct an organization’s resources to improve performance and achieve goals. Influential leaders provide clarity of purpose, motivate and lead the organization to its mission realization. Deshwal and Ali (2020) defined leadership as a “process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how it can be done effectively… process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish the shared objectives.” Understanding the role of leaders can help subordinates make a more meaningful contribution to their company’s goals, regardless of their position. As in the past, leadership seems to be a popular topic among various disciplines and researchers. Until now, more research has been done on leadership. Although the increase in research and publications is helping to develop leadership theory, it only contributes to its classification, omitting the multifaceted nature. Based on the above, this report aims to explore individual leadership theories, skills, and particular traits associated with a specific example of sports team leadership to show their overwhelming interconnection.
Case Study Background Information
In competitive sports, leaders are usually referred to as coaches, sports administrators, and peers who act as team captains. Much of the success of individuals and groups in the context of sports achievement has to do with the quality of leaders, their behavior, and implemented practices. Over time, experience, and in different settings, the leadership approach evolved and eventually included the human side, putting emotions, behavior, and attitudes into perspective. The case study chosen for this manuscript is coaching; more specifically, it is the case of Justin Langer – a former Australian international cricketer who also coached the Australia men’s national team (Gordon et al., 2017). According to an interview The Coach – Justin Langer (2019), his coaching style can be expressed in three dimensions: player preparation, game analysis, and team environment building. These areas can secure the team’s professional success and development if purposefully maintained.
Player preparation usually comes as the first association with the coaching profession. A coach should understand that when a game starts, his responsibilities are fulfilled for the time being (The Coach – Justin Langer, 2019). Thus, he should concentrate his efforts on what he can do to prepare the players for the upcoming performance. It does not include only the physical and theoretical practice, although they too play a substantial role in the game outcome; the main goal is to foster players’ independence and self-reliance. Professional players are constantly under the pressure of different expectations put on the team, which results in a significant amount of personal, competition, and organizational stress that players have to be taught to deal with. Gordon et al. (2017) also mention the mental toughness as one of the essential factors for high levels of performance. In other words, the coach is responsible for the team’s overall mental toughness training.
Another important part of coaching job is constantly monitoring the games and analyzing their multifaceted aspects. Without the analysis, there will be no strategic planning, flaws detection, and thus no progress possible. In this context, Langer compared his coaching experience to the one when he was a player. A player’s concern is usually centered around the upcoming game – whether he manages to show his strength and prove his worth to be later included in the next match (The Coach – Justin Langer, 2019). In the meantime, the coach should always keep a broader picture in mind – the ability to evaluate each individual player and the process as a whole might be decisive for the team’s future success.
Lastly comes the team’s environment building, which might be considered the most substantial contributing factor to a team’s success. According to Langer (2019), success is not measured solely by the count of wins and losses, as it might seem at first glance. Far greater importance belongs to the spirit that unites the team and deeply motivates players to do their best. A coach should understand that he has a central role in the team’s unity development – he is responsible for the players’ interpersonal relationships (player to player and coach to player) and conflict mitigation and solution. A healthy environment is a long-term guarantee of a team’s success in all its aspects. Overall, these three coaching dimensions share many similarities with theoretical leadership concepts. An important notion is that none of the concepts can solely encompass all of them, which indicates the versatility expected from the coach. Moreover, the Langer’s explanation of his experience proves how important is the coach to his team and how many roles he has to fulfill. In this context, leadership in sports settings presents a valuable asset for leadership theory research.
Theories of Leadership
Since its inception, transformational leadership theory has attracted considerable scholarly attention and is still among the most actively researched leadership paradigms. The notion that leaders improve organizational performance by transforming their followers provides a valuable conceptual framework for analysis and practice. According to Anderson et al. (2017, p. 3), transformational leadership implies the leader has an idealized influence on followers. He or she motivates them, challenges them, boosts their creativity by example, and gives them individual attention. In addition, by inspiring and supporting their subordinates, transformational leaders build a positive atmosphere, maintaining a high team spirit. Siangchokyoo et al. (2019, p. 3) emphasize that transformational leadership will have no effect if a bond between the leader and his or her subordinates is weak or absent. Consequently, a transformational leader usually possesses many charismatic qualities, such as attractiveness, credibility, high initiative, reasoning ability, and courage (Uslu, 2019, p. 163). He or she must also be empathic and communicative, which allows him or her to create and maintain bonds and recognize individual talents in his or her players. In this context, a third Langer’s principle resembles the direct application of transformational leadership.
Not every leader possesses specific character traits mentioned above; however, it does not necessarily mean his or her unsuitability as a leader. According to this logic, the behavioral leadership theory was developed; it implies that leadership can actually be taught and instructed. Kovach (2018, p. 3) defines behavioral leadership as a theory presupposing that it is not explicitly qualities but particular behaviors that distinguish leaders from others. In other words, an effective leader is one who exhibits the most conductive behaviors toward group productivity and psychological growth. These behaviors can be categorized as initiating structure and consideration (Kovach, 2018, p. 3). The former relies on the leader’s ability to organize activities, such as setting goals, assigning tasks, and monitoring their completion (Deshwal and Ali, 2020, p. 39). The latter is concerned with the leader-subordinate relationships; more specifically, the creation of mutual trust and respect through the support and care for subordinate’s feelings (Deshwal and Ali, 2020, p. 39). Behavioral theory corresponds to the second and third principles of Langer’s coaching. In addition, it shows the leadership skills that should be trained and developed, such as strategic planning, problem-solving, and negotiating.
Lastly, a leadership theory that emphasizes the subordinates’ independence is a leader-member exchange theory. In contrast to the previous two theories, this one focuses not only on the leader’s personality but rather on the reciprocal relationship between the leader and his followers (Kovach, 2018, p. 4). According to Li, J. et al. (2018, p. 123), the leader-member theory implies the exchange of valuable resources between the two. By delegating specific important tasks and decisions, the leader fosters independence and self-reliance of his subordinates; in turn, they reply with affection and stronger performance. From a social exchange perspective, this approach implies a leader’s individualized support, intellectual stimulation, and high-performance expectations (Li, J. et al., 2018, p. 127). It reflects the first and the third Langer’s principle of coaching – when the coach sends his players to the field, he trusts them with the consequent decisions during the game. The stimulation of independence also positively impacts players’ confidence and stress resistance while making the leader a team player.
Conclusion
In the example of Justin Langer’s coaching experience, the nature of leadership shows its multifaceted core, proving its importance, necessity, and integrity in the meantime. Langer’s coaching principles can be summarized as follows: player’s physical and mental preparation, broad analysis of the team’s actions, and team spirit maintenance. In the first case, the coach shows traits and skills of a leader following the leader-member leadership theory – he fosters the player’s independence and self-reliance. Acting as a team player, displaying trust, and relying on them, the coach strengthens players’ self-confidence and stress resistance. In the second case, the coach behaves according to the behavioral leadership theory. He takes control over the team’s actions, sets goals, and creates opportunities for team development. In addition, he displays care toward players, attending to their requirements. In the last case, the coach becomes a transformational leader who inspires his team by example. Not only does he show the way to success, he directly impacts the team’s interpersonal relationships, keeping players aligned toward the common goal. After all, to be a good coach means to be anything his team requires.
Reference List
Anderson, H. J et al. (2017) ‘What works for you may not work for (gen) me: limitations of present leadership theories for the new generation.’ The Leadership Quarterly, 28(1), pp. 245-260. Web.
Deshwal, V., and Ali, A. (2020) ‘A systematic review of various leadership theories.’ Shanlax International Journal of Commerce, 8(1), 38-43. Web.
FOX Sports Australia (2019) The Coach – Justin Langer. Web.
Gordon, S. et al. (2017) ‘A case study of strengths-based coaching of mental toughness in cricket.’ International journal of sport psychology, 48(3), pp. 223-245. Web.
Kovach, M. (2018) ‘An examination of leadership theories in business and sport achievement contexts.’ The Journal of Values-Based Leadership, 11(2), p. 14. Web.
Li, J. et al. (2018) ‘Leader-member exchange and leader identification: comparison and integration.’ Journal of Managerial Psychology, 33(2), pp. 122-141. Web.
Siangchokyoo, N. et al. (2019) ‘Follower transformation as the linchpin of transformational leadership theory: a systematic review and future research agenda.’ The Leadership Quarterly, 31(1). Web.
Uslu, O. (2019) ‘A general overview to leadership theories from a critical perspective.’ Marketing and Management of Innovations, (1), pp. 161-172. Web.