Importance Of Leadership In Sports

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LEADERSHIP LESSONS FROM SPORTS What is Leadership? Leadership is defined as the ability to influence a group towards the achievement of a vision or set of goals. The source of this influence may be formal, as happens by organizational hierarchy. However, this does not imply that every manager is a leader or only managers are leaders. The ability to influence and motivate an individual may arise in any non-formal structure as well. Thus, a leader may arise in any field be it politics, social service or sports. A leader possesses both talent and skill. Talent is an innate quality however skill is a proficiency which can be gained through rigorous persistence, training and experience. Leadership is nothing about seniority or one’s rank in a …show more content…

The performance of a leader is evident, more so in competitive games and matches. The leader’s performance can make or break the confidence of all the other team members. A sports leader has a three edged role. He should ensure player satisfaction, perform well himself and steer the group towards success. Sports leaders have position power over all players. However, the role of a sports leader is much more encompassing than being a good judge of a player’s ability. This implies that a leader should treat each player with the respect he/she deserves. Moreover, different leadership techniques apply to different players. As is the case with workers of varying strengths and weaknesses, sports leaders also need to flex their leadership style and practice the teachings of situational leadership. The qualities for a sports leader and by extension all other leaders …show more content…

Laissez Faire Leaders are ones who choose not to intervene and will allow the group to make decisions independently. This style can happen automatically and will result in a loss of group direction if the leader is inadequate. Lewin (1985) found that when subjected to this style of leadership, group members were inclined to be aggressive towards each other and gave up easily when mistakes occur. In this style of leadership, the characteristics adopted by the leader depends fundamentally on how favourable the situation