| Summary: | There is significant lack of sport psychology research that relates to strength and conditioning coaches. Therefore the purpose of this study was to examine the differences in self-perceived leadership styles of NBA, Division I mens basketball, and Division II mens basketball strength and conditioning coaches. The self-perceived leadership styles of 145 mens basketball strength and conditioning coaches (NBA = 22, DI = 92, and DII = 31) were obtained using the Revised Leadership Scale for Sport (Zhang, Jensen, & Mann, 1996; Jambor & Zhang, 1997). Some questions of the RLSS were adjusted slightly to reflect a weight room setting instead of an athletic setting. All subscales demonstrated a high reliability except for autocratic. Cronbachs Alpha for leadership was: .819 for democratic, .520 for autocratic, .813 for positive feedback, .831 for training and instruction, .724 for social support, and .741 for situational considerations. ANOVA results identified significance on five of the six subscales. Only positive feedback did not show significance. Scheffe post hoc tests were conducted on the five significant leadership subscales. Key findings showed that differences do exist between competitive level and strength and conditioning coach self-perceived leadership styles. The findings of the study indicate the importance of examining differences between competitive level and strength coach leadership styles as well as future studies to examine how strength coaches perceive themselves in comparison to how athletes perceive their strength coachs leadership styles.
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