What factors contribute to make a good leader and how might your style of leadership vary to be successful when involved in individual, racket and team activities?

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What factors contribute to make a good leader and how might your style of leadership vary to be successful when involved in individual, racket and team activities?

Leadership can be defined as the process whereby an individual influences group members in a way that inspires them to achieve some group goal that he or she has identified as important.There are several factors that can contribute to making a high-quality leader; one of them is the potential leaders’ characteristics. Some of the characteristics that are important include good communicator, motivational, confident, consistent, decision maker, tactful and tolerant. However the list is ever growing and no definitive list is possible.

 There has been a debate into whether leadership is down to nature or nurture. Trait theorists suggest that leaders are born with the attributes to lead. However trait theorists also believe that certain personality types and physical attributes like height, weight and self confidence develop leadership success. All the same it has been more recently it has been agreed that although the above may be the case, it is social influence which will influence a person’s development as a leader. Fielder’s contingency model (1967) tries to explain the link between a leader, personality traits and the situational requirements of the task. It suggests that leadership is contingent on the overall situation and is not only about personality. Consequently the success of leaders can depend on not only personality, but also on the activity being done and under what circumstances.

There are three different styles of leadership. The first is the Autocratic leader; the autocratic leader takes control, dictates to the group what should be done and they make all the decisions. According to Chelladuri and Salesh’s leadership scale for sports (1980), autocratic behavior is coaching behavior which involves independence in decision making and stresses personal authority  (from the performer).The autocratic style of leadership is inflexible, very task orientated. The autocratic leader rarely gets involved on a personal level with the group of team members. An example of an autocratic leader in a individual sport would be an athletics coach who is teaching young, beginners a dangerous aspect such as javelin. A good example of a famous autocratic leader in a team sport is Sir Alex Ferguson (Manchester United’s manager).One recurring theme of Sir Alex Ferguson's management of Manchester United has been his view that no player is bigger than the manager. He has consistently taken a "my way or the highway" approach in his dealings with players and the pressure of this management tact has often been the cause of many notable players' departures.Ferguson believes in using motivation every so often at the optimum moments, when it has its most power. Whenever he has achieved a success he never rests, always looking to the future for once the moment of victory has gone you can't go experience it again; you must do it all again to get back on that victory high. It is this drive and hunger for success that keeps him at the top. You would require an autocratic leader in a racket sport if you were coaching beginners a complex, important move such as a serve.

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 The second is democratic; the democratic leader is person orientated and will tend to listen and act on the opinions of the group. Chelladuri and Salesh’s leadership scale for sports says that democratic behavior is behavior which allows greater participation from the performer especially in making decision like training ideas, and game tactics and strategies. A democratic leader is more informal, very relaxed, is more active within the group than the autocratic leader. An example of when a democratic leader would be required in an individual sport would be long jump. This is because it is debatable whether or not ...

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