Leadership Behavior among Elite male and female gymnasts of India

Abstract

The study was conducted on thirty-five international gymnasts (nineteen males and sixteen females) who had represented the country in various International Gymnastics Championships during 2004-2008. The average age of males and females was 20.79 and 19.69. To collect data from the subjects, the Leadership Scale for Sport was used to measure the preferred and perceived leader behavior of male and female gymnasts on five dimensions of leader behaviour. The analysis of data revealed that: 1.Male and female gymnasts of International level expressed similar preferences on the set of five leader behaviour dimensions. 2. The actual leader behavior of international male gymnasts toward to coaches was found greater in democratic behavior (DB), social support (SS) positive feedback (PF) and autocratic behaviour (AB) than females. It indicated that most male gymnasts need more skill training and instructions. They all thinks that coaches should give more Training & Instruction Behavior (TI). Because the way of improve gymnastics skills is very complicated and need to be strengthened. 3. There was no discrepancy between preferred and perceived leader behaviour of international male gymnasts on five leader behaviour dimensions. Differences were found among international level female gymnasts between specific coaching behaviour and actual leader behaviour in social support (SS) and autocratic behaviour (AB).