| Summary: | Internationally, sport has become a profession and the desire for success has resulted in sporting professionals constantly searching for means to enhance performance levels. Despite the fact that South Africa has produced a large number of world-class athletes, it is both necessary and essential to constantly strive to advance the performance levels and consistency of both our existing and prospective athletes, in order to sustain and continue achieving success at the elite level. The collective theory and research reviewed in this study have clearly indicated that the perceptions, level of motivational orientations and psychological well-being of athletes explain and predict their performance within their sport. In addition, these psychological characteristics are significantly affected by the leadership style exhibited by the coach. Thus, in order to gain a more accurate and comprehensive interpretation of athletesâ sporting behaviour, the socio-environmental influences need to be taken into account. As a core objective of self-determination theory is to grasp the effect of the social environment on an individualâs motivation, well-being, affect and behaviour, it was the theory of choice in providing a conceptual framework for the current study.
The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between perceived need-supportive leadership (as a core socio-environmental influence) and the participation motivation, psychological well-being and performance levels of South African top achieving sporting youth. Firstly, relationships were tested between perceived need-supportive leadership and athletesâ motivation, psychological well-being and self- and coach-rated performance. Secondly, the accuracy of a theoretical model, depicting that athletesâ perceived need-supportive leadership of the coach leads to enhanced motivation, psychological well-being and heightened performance, was determined. Thirdly, was the investigation of meaningful differences with respect to the athletesâ perceived need-supportive leadership, motivation, psychological well-being and performance variables across gender and race. A non-experimental, cross-sectional survey research design utilising self-report measures was selected to investigate the various factors at hand. The total sample consisted of 453 team-sport athletes, recruited from four athletic teams (mean age = 17.3 years), and 33 coaches. The athletes comprised both genders, male (mean age = 17.5 years) and female (mean age = 17.1 years) and two main racial groups, black (mean age = 17.1 years) and white (mean age = 17.4 years). The coaches were representative of both genders and both black and white racial groups.
Pearsonâs correlation coefficients (r) were computed to determine the correlations between athletesâ perceived need-supportive leadership and motivation; psychological well-being; and performance. A non-directional, two-tailed test of significance was applied, largely confirming the hypotheses that perceived need-supportive leadership is positively related to an increase in the athletesâ autonomous motivation (medium effect sizes), psychological well-being (small to medium effect sizes) and self- and coach-rated personal performance (small to medium effect sizes). The partial least squares (PLS) approach to structural equation modelling (SEM) was utilised in evaluating the results relating to the process or paths depicting the variables influencing optimal performance. The conceptual model with its hypothesised paths indicated significant path coefficients and explained 26% of the variance in performance, for the total group of athletes. In determining significant differences between the path coefficients of the gender and racial groups, a PLS-SEM multigroup analysis (PLS-MGA) was executed for comparing the PLS-SEM model estimates of each group. In general, SDTâs notion of universality held true for the models fitted to the gender and racial groups. Unique to this study, however, was the finding of gender differences in the pathway between perceived coaching style and autonomous motivation, reflecting a stronger influence for the female group and thus suggesting that female athletesâ autonomous motivation is more strongly influenced by the coachesâ perceived coaching-style than is the case for their male counterparts. A perceived need-supportive leadership style may thus be regarded as an important impetus for enhancing quality motivation and psychological well-being and thus promoting optimal performance.
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