There are different ways of how leaders gain their position within a team.
Prescribed leaders
A prescribed leader is leader that has been enrolled by an outside body; they are not chosen or voted in by members of the team (or chosen by the individual). An example of this is in a football team, a chairman of a football team can employ a manager to manage the team without consulting the players. This can sometimes not be the best way to appoint a leader; it can cause resentment towards the manager if for example there is another individual within the team structure who the team feels as though should be the team leader.
Emergent leaders
Most of the time the most successful team leader is a person that has come from within the group to be a successful leader, they are selected by their peers from within and will show strong leadership characteristics. Emergent leaders tend to be successful because they have good natural leadership skills and they have the full support form their team. A good example of a emergent leader is Gareth Southgate of Middlesbrough football club, he emerged from the team to become the manager and he and the team are doing well this season.
Often leaders are a mixture of prescribed and emergent leaders. Candidates for a team captain may be selected by the manager and voted for by the team.
There are two categories of leader:
Task-oriented
Task-oriented leaders are those leaders who have good activity-related skills and knowledge. They are those who can lead the team because of their understanding of the task and who lead because of their experience and knowledge.
Person-oriented
Person-oriented leaders are leaders who are influenced by the people who they are leading, i.e. their ability to do a particular task, e.g. putting a football player in the forward position because he is fast and good at finding spaces.
These types of leaders can be used in different types of sports:
Individual leaders
An individual performer will be an autocratic leader as they need to set a strict routine for training and performance, until recently Andrew Murry was an individual leader until he employed his own manager to help him to improve his skills to the next level. Individual leaders would need a clear view of the goals that they want to achieve. A laissez-Faire leader would be unable to motivate these people for the task and would therefore be unsuccessful.
Team Leaders
These are leaders that are employed by a board of management, i.e a football team board will decide who is best fit to manage the new team, they also have power of their wage, and they also have the power to sack them if they are not performing their job properly, an example of this is when Alan Pardew got sacked from being the West Ham United football club manager because he wasn’t performing his job properly.
Racket sports leaders
Like individual leaders these are people who lead individual people, a bond would need to be established on a personal level which means a democratic style of leadership would be needed to be set up between the performers. Nathan Robertson and Gail Emms are very successful badminton players because they are able to communicate with one another and keep each other motivated in match situations so they play to the best of their ability. They also have a manager to help point them in the right direction.
There are three specific styles of leadership characteristics:
Autocratic
Autocratic leaders take control, they command the team like it would be in the army, they dictate what should be done and they expect people to do what they say. This style is often suited to dangerous situations where decisions need to be made quickly, these people are often disliked by the people who they are leading because they can seam to be forceful and they don’t seam to understand of take into account other peoples feelings. These leaders are best suited to leading a team going up a high mountain where situations could be dangerous or get out of hand. These people are most certainly task oriented leaders as little notice is taken to individuals.
Democratic
These leaders are person oriented, as it suggests in the name they listen to peoples opinions in the group and act upon their views, they will often go with the majority opinion. These types of leaders will often be more ‘in touch’ group because they let other people’s voice to be heard. Being a democratic leader they might have more respect off the group.
Laissez-faire
This people are people who must have the most trust for the group that they are leading, they are the type of leaders who give the people that they are leading little direction and they expect the team to do the right thing. They encourage people to make their own decisions. To lead in this kind of way you must be leading people who also have a lot of experience. This style is not suited to people who are leading a young or inexperienced group of people as this style involves a lot of trust. Leaders who have more trust with the team tend to be more emergent leaders who have worked their way up the leadership scale.
Answering this question
I have found out that a good leader can be both people orientated as well as task orientated. In different sports one style of leadership may be mainly used in certain activities but aspects of others may be preferred by different people in different teams and people playing at different levels. People have their own opinion on what makes up a good leader but there are certain aspects that most people will agree on that are essential to make up a good leader. It has also helped me to understand more the difference between the styles of leadership and generally the different styles are used for certain sporting activities but this may not always be the case as aspects of a different style might be used . To be a successful leader in a sporting activity you need to think about what style of leadership you will use whether you are more person or task orientated depending on the type of activity. You also need to consider the people you are coaching/leading as your style and attitude may have to vary.
Bibliography: Edexcel A level Physical Education Text Book
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