Shohei Takamatsu

Although research has accumulated on the effects of shared athlete leadership, its antecedents, particularly the effects of coaches on shared athlete leadership, have rarely been examined. This study used a social network approach to examine the indirect role of the internal team environment in the association between coach servant leadership and shared athlete leadership. Data were collected from 44 teams consisting of 1,120 Japanese high-school athletes. Density, centralisation, and centrality variance were calculated to measure shared athlete leadership. The results show that teams with higher coach servant leadership had a better internal team environment and a higher density of shared athlete leadership. We also calculated the importance-weighted density (IWD) and found that coach servant leadership was related to shared athlete leadership-IWD via the internal team environment. This study deepens the current understanding of the antecedents of shared athlete leadership and demonstrates the effectiveness of coach servant leadership.

This study argues, based on macro theory, which integrates self-determination and broaden-and-build theories, that a coach’s servant leadership enhances athletes’ intrinsic motivation and positive affect, thus enhancing their serving behaviors toward their teammates. In Study 1, data were collected from 600 athletes belonging to university athletic clubs in Japan through an online survey. In Study 2, data were collected from a university with one of the largest sport faculties in Japan at two time points—with 311 university athletes at Time 1 and 269 athletes, 3 months later, at Time 2. The results revealed that intrinsic motivation and positive affect sequentially mediated the positive relationship between coach servant leadership and athlete serving behaviors. The findings contribute to the development of the servant-leadership literature by demonstrating a new pathway from servant leadership of coaches (leaders) to serving behaviors of athletes (followers) based on macro theory.