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2 A. Rui Gomes
Chapter
TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP:
THEORY, RESEARCH, AND APPLICATION
TO SPORTS
*
A. Rui Gomes
University of Minho, School of Psychology. Portugal
ABSTRACT
Analyzing the influence of coaches on athlete performance and on the
psychological experiences of team members (e.g., motivation,
satisfaction, and cohesion) is a fascinating endeavor. Thus, it is not
surprising that several authors have dedicated considerable effort to
studying coaches’ mental representations and actions being proposed
important conceptual models (Chelladurai, 1993; Côté, Salmela, Trudel,
Baria, & Russell, 1995; Smoll & Smith, 1989; Jowett, 2007).
Despite the unequivocal interest in these proposals, insufficient attention
has been given to recent developments in leadership research, namely
charismatic and transformational leadership (Bass, 1985; Burns, 1978;
Conger & Kanungo, 1987; House, 1977). Therefore, analyzing the
application of transformational leadership in sports contexts becomes
important.
*
Corresponding author: A. Rui Gomes, Universidade do Minho, Escola de Psicologia, Campus
de Gualtar, 4710-057 Braga, Portugal, Tel. +253.604.232, Fax: +253.604.224, Email:
rgomes@psi.uminho.pt.
Transformational Leadership 3
Taking this need into consideration, this chapter aims to: (a) review the
theoretical proposals and research conducted regarding
charismatic/transformational leadership in several organizational
contexts; (b) review the research conducted regarding transformational
leadership in sports; and (c) propose conceptual, empirical, and practical
guidelines concerning the application of transformational leadership in
sports.
INTRODUCTION
According to Dwight Eisenhower, President of the United States,
“leadership is the ability to decide what is to be done, and then go get others to
want to do it” (Larson, 1968, p. 21). Accordingly, for Harry S. Truman also
President of the United States (1958, p. 139), “a leader is a man who has the
ability to get other people to do what they don’t want to do, and like it”.
Likewise, some authors have identified the instrumental side of leadership,
meaning that this phenomenon should be understood as a process of
influencing others to achieve certain goals (Bartol & Martin, 1994; Zaleznik,
1989). However, there is no mention of the values, ethics, morals, or
“goodness” involved in leadership in these definitions (Drouillard & Kleiner,
1996), and somehow they suggest that leaders use manipulative or persuasive
strategies to accomplish certain objectives. Thus, these definitions may not
overcome other forms of using the power of leadership. For example, recent
leadership movements have proposed that power depends on a leader’s
capacity to create positive and challenging visions of an organization’s future
and articulate ways for followers to accomplish this vision (Bass, 1990; Bennis
& Nanus, 1985; Burns, 1978; Tichy & Devanna, 1986).
Despite these differences, all leadership definitions emphasize the primary
characteristic of leadership: influencing others. This chapter analyzes one
conceptual approach that explains the processes of influence between leaders
and followers: transformational leadership.
The potential impact that transformational leaders have on their contexts,
by introducing substantial changes to their social and work environments, as
well as on the values and behaviors of their followers justifies this interest. In
fact, in the world of open markets in which organizations must deal with
aggressive competitors and increase the quality of their performance with
fewer resources, leaders play an important role in helping individuals and
organizations prosper or simply survive. As it will be presented,
transformational leaders have been demonstrating their efficacy in a broad set
4 A. Rui Gomes
of contexts, leading their followers, groups, and organizations to perform
beyond what would be expected without them.
Thus, this chapter analyzes the importance of transformational leadership
in sports, examining whether this construct can help understand the leadership
styles applied by the different individuals involved in sports, with particular
attention paid to the leadership of coaches. More specifically, the following
questions directed the analyses: does transformational leadership apply to
sports? What is the current state of research on this subject in sports? What
should be overcome in future research? To best respond to these questions, it
is necessary to explain why this “new” leadership movement emerged and
what are its primary theoretical and empirical contributions to the study of
leadership. To accomplish these goals, this chapter is divided into five
sections.
The first section describes conceptual approaches to the study of
leadership. The main goal of this section is to provide an historical perspective
of the theoretical frameworks of the study of leadership. Furthermore, it
explains when and why the study of transformational leadership became useful
and important to the social sciences, being also explained the concept of
charismatic leadership because it is historically related with transformational
leadership.
The second section presents the theoretical models of charismatic and
transformational leadership. In addition, it defines the primary constructs and
characteristics of these leadership types. As in the first section, the major goal
of this section is to provide an historical perspective of the conceptual
approaches to the study of charismatic and transformational leadership.
The third section analyzes the impact of transformational leaders. Its goal
is to demonstrate the changes introduced by transformational leaders and to
observe the impact of these changes on followers and organizations. Thus,
some important questions are answered in this section: why study
transformational leaders? What is learned from this leadership approach?
The fourth section introduces the study of transformational leadership
with regard to sports. Considering the empirical research on the effects of
transformational leaders addressed by the previous section, this section
attempts to answer the following questions: is there value in analyzing
transformational leadership in sports? If so, what are the findings of this
research?
The fifth and final part of the chapter highlights the potential for
transformational leadership research in sports. Its goal is to identify what must
Transformational Leadership 5
be better understood about transformational leadership and the advantages of
this approach in a sports context.
LEADERSHIP STUDY APPROACHES
Leadership is a complex and fascinating topic. Researchers have dedicated
significant effort to study the so-called leadership triangle, which involves a
leader, the followers, and the environment where this leadership occurs. Over
the years, different approaches have emerged to explain each aspect of this
triangle as well as the complex interaction among them.
Early approaches to the study of leadership emphasized the characteristics
(or traits) of the leader. For example, in his well-known book Hereditary
Genius, Sir Francis Galton (1869) proposed that leadership is a property
unique to extraordinary individuals who take actions to change the course of
history. Similarly, the famous psychologist William James (1880) admitted
that major societal changes result from the actions of great individuals who
lead others in directions they believe to be important.
This vision of leadership influenced researchers to analyze leader
characteristics at different levels (e.g., intellectually, psychologically, and
physically), and the study of these attributes dominated the field until the late
1940s and early 1950s (Zaccaro, 2007). This movement has become known as
the heroic conception of leadership, which resulted in the “greatman”
leadership theory (Vroom & Jago, 2007). This conception of leadership is
attractive because psychological tests might be used to discover the important
psychological traits of effective leaders, and even more enthusiastically,
society would be able to place these individuals in leadership positions to
achieve the best results for all of us.
However, important reviews regarding leadership traits concluded that
leadership personality features differ significantly across studies, being
difficult to define a set of characteristics that explains leadership efficacy
(Mann, 1959; Stodgill, 1948). For example, Stodgill (1948) reviewed 30 years
of trait studies and concluded that only a few traits (most notably intelligence)
were associated (approximately 35% of the time) with differences between
leaders and followers. However, the most disappointing result was that no
variable or cluster of variables was related to effective leadership across
situations. Thus, Stodgill (1948) concluded that finding a single personality
trait that predicted effective leadership was unlikely because “an adequate
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