High school student-athletes’ perceptions and experiences of leadership as a life skill

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2020.101716Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Student-athletes viewed leadership as a skillset and a mindset driven by individual agency.

  • Increased awareness, self-expectations and self-confidence helped develop leadership skills.

  • Conscious and implicit states and situational opportunities influenced leadership transfer.

Abstract

Objectives

The purpose of this study was to gain student-athlete perceptions of: (1) the definition of leadership for high school student-athletes; (2) the process of leadership development in high school sport; and (3) the factors that have helped or hindered leadership transfer between high school sport and other life domains.

Design

This study was grounded in an interpretivist ontological perspective and used focus group interviews to gather insights of student-athletes’ leadership experiences.

Method

Purposeful sampling identified 33 high-school student-athlete leaders who were members of student advisory councils for high school state athletic associations in the United States. The 15 females and 18 males participated in focus-group interviews. Reflexive thematic analysis of the interview data was then conducted.

Results

Results revealed that student-athlete leadership was viewed as a skill-set and a mindset, driven by individual agency. As an on-going developmental process, student-athletes gained awareness of leadership skills, increased self-expectations and self-confidence in their use and application of leadership skills, and developed a transformational leadership mindset, as they encountered and engaged with critical learning opportunities in high school sport and gained support from coaches and peers. Leadership application outside of sport was a multidimensional psychological process, including both conscious and implicit elements, and facilitated or constrained by environmental opportunities and social influences.

Conclusions

High school sport offers a unique context where self-agentic youth leadership development in sport and life can occur through experiential learning opportunities. To this point, future research directions and recommendations for practitioners will be provided.

Introduction

High school sport represents one of the most prevalent extra-curricular contexts for young people in the United States (U.S.). In 2018, the 7.98 million student-athletes participating in high school sport in (National Federation of High Schools, 2019), represented approximately 47% of the 17.1 million high school students in the US (U.S. Census Bureau, 2018). While high school sport is widely sanctioned within educational institutions in the U.S. and is deeply embedded in the culture of local communities (Coakley, 2015), it is also a unique setting within the larger education system with its demand on student time and commitment and its publicly-observable organized interscholastic competition (Turgeon, Kendellen, Kramers, Rathwell, & Camiré., 2019). When structured appropriately, high school sport provides the opportunity for youth to exercise psychosocial skills to enhance sport performance and can be a salient context for positive youth development (PYD) and the learning of life skills (Camiré, 2014). In particular, developing leaders is one of the publicized intended outcomes of participation in high school sport for student-athletes in the U.S. (National Federation of High Schools, 2019). Furthermore, leadership has been identified as one of the most important life skills for young athletes to acquire and develop to help them thrive in sport and in life beyond sport (Gould, Chung, Smith, & White, 2006).

Within sport, athlete leadership is defined as “an athlete occupying a formal or informal role within a team who influences team members to achieve a common goal” (Loughead, Hardy, & Eys, 2006, p. 144). A number of positive outcomes at both team and individual levels have been associated with athlete leadership (e.g., performance; task and social cohesion), particularly when that leadership is perceived as effective (see Cotterill & Fransen, 2016, for review). Such psychosocial assets in the youth sport setting include: setting an example on and off the field, organizational duties, motivating and encouraging teammates, offering mentoring and support, being a liaison between coaches, athletes, and referees, enforcing discipline, representing the team within the community, and obtaining support for the team (Dupuis, Bloom, & Loughead, 2006; Loughead et al., 2006; Wright & Côté, 2003). Furthermore, studies have found that youth leaders possess an internal locus of control, high aspiration, competitiveness, emotional expressiveness and regulation, responsibility, respectfulness, trustworthiness, optimism, effective communication, and high self-esteem that can benefit them in sport and in multiple life domains (Dupuis et al., 2006; Yukelson, Weinberg, Richardson, & Jackson, 1983). While leadership characteristics and behaviors have been identified for youth athletes, leadership styles are also necessary to consider. Transformational leadership, in particular, has received support as an athlete leadership style to promote individual motivation and enjoyment as well as group cohesion and collective efficacy (Price and Weiss, 2011; Zacharatos, Barling, & Kelloway, 2000). Specifically, transformational leaderships focuses on inspiring followers to not only perform the task but to move beyond self-interests to actively contribute to goals of the group and their own development, and moves beyond transactional leadership which emphasizes direction, supervision, and feedback as rewards and punishments to shape follower behavior (Zacharatos et al., 2000).

With the focus on youth development, we must consider that there are significant differences in the needs, practices, and styles of adult versus youth leaders (MacNeil, 2006). Youth leadership research across different contexts (e.g., education, community) has examined individual leader characteristics and actions, the process of leading (Libby, Sedonaen, & Bliss, 2006), the unique nature of physical and emotional changes, the development of self-acceptance, and variety of learning contexts and value systems that young people experience (van Linden & Fertman, 1998). Youth leadership development can be viewed as a continuous process that occurs in three distinct stages: 1) Awareness; 2) Interaction; and 3) Mastery, where youth learn various cognitive, emotional, and behavioral skills as they are presented with opportunities as well as barriers to use in developing and utilizing their leadership across multiple contexts (van Linden & Fertman, 1998).

To this point, Avolio (2007) encouraged researchers to consider unique leadership context while examining the dynamic interaction between leaders and followers. The argument for understanding the contextual-specificities of leadership development is further supported when we consider that while youth may develop leadership skills in one context (i.e., sport), it cannot be assumed that they will automatically and effectively transfer the leadership skills into another context (i.e., education; Gould & Carson, 2008; Pierce, Gould, & Camiré, 2017). Examining the process of life skills development and transfer, Pierce et al. (2017) have proposed that life skills can be developed or internalized as discrete psychosocial skills, knowledge, general shifts in dispositions, and even identity transformations. When life skills have been internalized, life skills transfer is a youth/learner-centered process with characteristics of the learning context (i.e., high school sport) and the transfer context (e.g., classroom, employment, community engagement) influencing the nature and occurrence (or not) of life skills transfer. Critically, this perspective is grounded in person-in-context developmental perspectives where processes and contexts are situated and constrained within broader socio-cultural environments.

High school sport has been idealized as a site for leadership development in popular culture. For this reason, a contextually specific definition of student-athlete leadership and a nuanced understanding of its development and transfer would provide both scientifically and practical utility. In fact, some researchers argue that more empirical investigation is needed to examine the claims of the positive impact of high school sports on youth leadership development (Pot & van Hilvoorde, 2013). The examination of how student-athletes define leadership and perceive its relevance in relation to high school sport is necessary as coaches have identified poor leadership as one of the most frequently cited problems among adolescent athletes (Gould et al., 2006), and many high school sport captains believe that they are not provided the guidance, training, nor opportunities to exercise advanced leadership skills (e.g., mentoring teammates, managing conflict situations; Voelker, Gould, & Crawford, 2011). Thus, the purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of student-athletes’ perceptions of their experiences in developing leadership in high school sport and transferring leadership as a life skill between sport and other life domains. Specifically, this study examined (1) how leadership is defined by student-athletes in the high school sport context; (2) how high school student-athletes describe the process of leadership development; and (3) how high school student-athletes describe the process of transferring leadership between high school sport and other life contexts.

Section snippets

Research design

This study was grounded in an interpretivist ontological perspective, designed to seek detailed descriptions, interpretations, and meanings that student-athletes bring to their leadership in high school sport (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011). In line with this philosophical approach, purposeful sampling identified participants for focus group interviews. This methodology was used to gather novel, in-depth insights of student-athletes’ leadership experiences. As the interpretivist perspective positions

Results

The reflexive thematic analysis revealed a unique definition and depiction of leadership for high school student-athletes. To address the three sub-purposes of this study, this section presents student-athletes perceptions of: (1) the definition of leadership for high school student-athletes; (2) the interactive process of leadership development; and (3) perceptions of leadership as a life skill; with participant quotes (using pseudonyms) and examples.

Discussion

This study explored high school student-athlete perceptions and experiences of (1) the definition of student-athlete leadership; (2) the process of leadership development; and (3) the process of leadership transfer between contexts. The reflexive thematic analysis revealed that student-athlete leadership was defined as both a skillset and a mindset, determined by individual agency yet directly influenced by specific sport-related experiences and the individual’s social support systems.

Conclusion

High school sport is positioned to have a unique influence on student-athlete psychosocial development (Turgeon et al., 2019), with personal and team-based leadership being one asset that can be uniquely shaped over this time and experience. Student-athletes viewed leadership as both a skillset and a mindset developed and transferred across contexts during the structured four years of high school sport. As an on-going interactive process, leadership can and should be developed in sport. Coaches

Funding

This research was supported by a research grant from the Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP) awarded to Scott Pierce, Karl Erickson & Mustafa Sarkar.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Scott Pierce: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing, Visualization, Project administration, Funding acquisition. Karl Erickson: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing - original draft, Project administration. Mustafa Sarkar: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing - review & editing, Funding acquisition.

Declaration competing of interest

The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests:

The research presented in this manuscript was supported by a research grant from the Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP) awarded to Scott Pierce, Karl Erickson & Mustafa Sarkar.

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