A Systematic Observation of Coach Leadership Behaviours in Youth Sport
Bibliographic record
Abstract
There is growing recognition for the Transformational Leadership (TFL) framework in youth sport. Indeed, theoretical and empirical evidence suggests that coach TFL plays a salient role in promoting developmental outcomes in youth athletes. Nevertheless, research examining the influence of coach leadership behaviours typically relies on self-report measures and inductive analytical techniques, thus providing a limited picture of TFL. It is therefore important to generate baseline descriptive data, revealing the extent to which leadership behaviours are currently being employed by youth sport coaches. Accordingly, the overarching purpose of this study was to provide quantitative descriptions relating to the nature and extent to which youth sport coaches display leadership behaviours across playing contexts (i.e., training and competition). Participants were seven head coaches of youth soccer teams and 73 athletes (Mage = 14.26, SD = 1.27, 40 female). Systematic observation was employed to examine the frequency of coach leadership behaviours. Descriptive data regarding the coaches’ use of leadership revealed that coaches spend more time exhibiting neutral behaviours compared to active leadership (e.g., TFL). This was consistent across training (75.2% neutral) and competition (77.5% neutral). When coaches actively displayed leadership, they frequently displayed TFL behaviours, including individualized consideration (M = 9.29%), inspirational motivation (M = 6.68%), and less frequently, intellectual stimulation (M = 2.95%), and idealized influence (M = 1.5%). Additionally, coaches rarely displayed passive and ineffective leadership. Finally, the results indicate that coaches display similar levels of leadership in both training and completion. These findings provide insight into the leadership behaviours employed by coaches across playing contexts, which can inform future leadership workshops focused on promoting athlete development. These findings hold practical implications, and lend insight into the youth sport coaching and TFL literature.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.008 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".