The role of leadership in a sports organization: The case of diomidis argos handball team.

Abstract

This thesis tries to study to what extend the leadership style and the coaching profile of a Greek handball team derived its perpetual success. The literature review of this paper deals with the leadership concept form a historical and theoretical perspective emphasizing its influence in the sport dimension. The research is constructed through adopting both quantitative and qualitative data collection to emphasize the leader-followers interactions. The research tools used are an adapted version of the MLQ questionnaire for coach and players of Diomidis Argos handball team, an adapted questionnaire from a Survey from Council for Excellence in Management & Leadership and opened discussions with the players and an interview with Diomidis coach. The leadership style of the coach as identifies by this research is transformational leadership (high score) with hints of transactional leadership (moderate scores). The leaders’ dependability and interpersonal relationship with followers tend to influence the followers their perception and drive. The transformational profile of the coach is identified as the main attribute that leads to followers’ motivation and support which also has proven in this case to be the framework for constructing this team’s success.