Coach Leadership in Football

In sport, effective leadership has become synonymous with championships. Coaches with winning records are deemed great leaders, often relying on the control and manipulation of their athletes to achieve their ends. Athlete development has been overshadowed by performance-based results, and so methods of coach leadership have come to reflect a single-minded emphasis on winning. The aim of this work is to improve athletes' performances through more ethical modes of leadership and coach behavior. For the majority of coaches, and most certainly those at the more elite levels, winning has taken precedence over the development of the athlete to reflect societal values. However, the evolution of leadership research has led to new modes that combine athlete development with winning and help to mediate this tension through considerate forms of leadership. For the purposes of this work, the process of leadership will be applied to the sport of contact football and how football coaches can employ modes of leadership that result in the heightened performances associated with transformational leadership.