Does Fair Coach Behavior Predict the Quality of Athlete Leadership Among Belgian Volleyball and Basketball Players: The Vital Role of Team Identification and Task Cohesion

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH

published: 07 February 2022

doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.645764

Edited by:

Roberta Antonini Philippe,

University of Lausanne, Switzerland

Reviewed by:

Roland Seiler,

University of Bern, Switzerland

David Trouilloud,

Université Grenoble Alpes, France

*Correspondence:

Maarten De Backer

[email protected]

Specialty section:

This article was submitted to

Performance Science,

a section of the journal

Frontiers in Psychology

Received: 23 December 2020

Accepted: 23 December 2021

Published: 07 February 2022

Citation:

De Backer M,

Van Puyenbroeck S, Fransen K,

Reynders B, Boen F, Malisse F and

Vande Broek G (2022) Does Fair

Coach Behavior Predict the Quality

of Athlete Leadership Among Belgian

Volleyball and Basketball Players:

The Vital Role of Team Identiﬁcation

and Task Cohesion.

Front. Psychol. 12:645764.

doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.645764

Does Fair Coach Behavior Predict

the Quality of Athlete Leadership

Among Belgian Volleyball and

Basketball Players: The Vital Role of

Team Identiﬁcation and Task

Cohesion

Maarten De Backer

, Stef Van Puyenbroeck, Katrien Fransen, Bart Reynders, Filip Boen,

Florian Malisse and Gert Vande Broek

Physical Activity, Sports and Health Research Group, Department of Movement Sciences, Faculty of Movement

and Rehabilitation Sciences, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

A vast stream of empirical work has revealed that coach and athlete leadership are

important determinants of sport teams’ functioning and performance. Although coaches

have a direct impact on individual and team outcomes, they should also strive to

stimulate athletes to take up leadership roles in a qualitative manner. Yet, the relation

between coach leadership behavior and the extent of high-quality athlete leadership

within teams remains underexposed. Based on organizational justice theory and the

social identity approach, the present research tested whether perceived justice of the

coach positively predicts the quality of athlete leadership. Furthermore, we examined the

role of group dynamic processes (i.e., team identiﬁcation and task cohesion) within this

relation. Belgian volleyball (N = 161) and basketball players (N = 78) were asked to rate

the justice of their coach, their team identiﬁcation, the task cohesion, and the athlete

leadership quality in the team. Structural equation modeling indicated that coaches’

perceived justice positively predicted the quality of athletes’ leadership, and that this

relation was established through three intermediate steps (i.e., from team identiﬁcation

to task cohesion, to athlete leadership quality). These results suggest that fair coach

behavior does not only bridge the gap between leadership and followership, it also has

the potential to improve the quality of athletes’ leadership within sport teams. More

speciﬁcally, ﬁndings suggest that coaches’ perceived justice cultivates a shared social

identity characterized by high levels of players’ identiﬁcation with their team, which in

turn increased their perceptions of the team’s task cohesion. Finally, this increased task

cohesion encouraged the athlete leaders to demonstrate high-quality leadership.

Keywords: organizational justice, fairness, social identity approach, group dynamics, team sports, coaching

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De Backer et al. Fair Coaching Predicts Athlete Leadership

INTRODUCTION

Bringing talented players together is only the ﬁrst step toward

success in team sport competition. The second and more

important step is persuading these players to function together as

a team. It is this team functioning that often makes the diﬀerence

between winning and losing. Eﬀective leadership of the coach

plays an important role in the process of optimizing this team

functioning (Cotterill, 2013). Research in the business setting

concluded that leadership eﬀectiveness predicts optimal team

functioning (Stoker et al., 2001; Judge et al., 2004) and depends

on the perceived justice of the leader (Colquitt and Greenberg,

2003; van Knippenberg et al., 2007). In line with these results,

research in the sport setting (De Backer et al., 2011, 2015) has

shown that when coaches are perceived as fair, athletes would

more strongly identify with their team. More speciﬁcally, instead

of deﬁning themselves in terms of their personal identity (as “I”

and “me”), players would rather deﬁne themselves as members

of their team (as “we” and “us”) and strongly valued this group

membership. Moreover, it has been shown that a high level of

team identiﬁcation and team cohesion decreased the amount

of social loaﬁng within sport teams (De Backer et al., 2011,

2015). Recent research also indicated that athletes who perceived

their coach as fair showed higher levels of satisfaction with the

working method of their coach and reported more progression

(De Backer et al., 2020).

However, the coach is not the only source of leadership

that can inﬂuence the team functioning. Also leaders within

the team can occupy important leadership roles. These athlete

leaders have been deﬁned as “athletes, occupying a formal or

informal role within a team, who inﬂuence a group of team

members to achieve a common goal” (Loughead et al., 2006).

Recent work has demonstrated that these athlete leaders have

the potential to improve their team’s functioning, performance,

and teammates’ well-being (Mertens et al., 2018; Fransen et al.,

2020c). As a result, it seems valuable to examine whether and

how coaches can stimulate athletes to take up leadership roles in

a qualitative manner.

The ﬁrst studies on athlete leadership in sport teams

distinguished between three diﬀerent leadership roles (Loughead

et al., 2006): (1) Task leadership, which focused on the

accomplishment of the team goals on the ﬁeld (e.g., oﬀering

teammates tactical instructions when required); (2) Social

leadership, which fostered on cultivating positive interactions

between team members outside the ﬁeld (e.g., oﬀering support

to teammates and caring for a good atmosphere oﬀ the ﬁeld);

and (3) External leadership, aiming for a good representation

of the team toward people outside the team, such as media,

sponsors, .. . . However, research of Fransen et al. (2014b)

demonstrated the existence of a fourth distinct role, namely

the motivational leader on the ﬁeld. This motivational leader

encourages teammates to stay motivated during games and

practices (e.g., by encouraging teammates to do their utmost

on the ﬁeld). Fransen et al. (2014a) demonstrated that each of

the four leadership roles contributes to an overall perception

of athlete leader quality. High-quality athlete leadership in

the team has been linked to higher levels of team cohesion

(Price and Weiss, 2011, 2013; Fransen et al., 2014b), team

conﬁdence (Fransen et al., 2014a), and even team performance

(Fransen et al., 2015a).

It is thus well-known that qualitative athlete leaders positively

impact the team’s functioning and several performance-

enhancing outcomes. Yet, research on athlete leadership

has almost exclusively focused on outcomes of high-quality

leadership within teams, thereby ignoring how the quality of

athlete leaders can be fostered within a team. Only recently,

scholars have started to develop intervention protocols to

develop athlete leadership (e.g., Fransen et al., 2020b). Yet even

these studies mainly target players within the team, thereby

underlighting the potential role of coaches’ leadership style and

coach behavior in stimulating high-quality athlete leadership

within their teams. The current study aimed to address this

question by investigating the relation between the perceived

justice of the coach and athlete leadership quality in sport

teams. De Backer et al. (2011, 2015) already referred to the

importance of the perceived justice of the coach for shaping team

identiﬁcation and cohesiveness within the team. We assume that

such positive group dynamics are key conditions to foster high

qualitative athlete leadership.

In order to gain insight in the process through which a fair

coaching style could foster high qualitative athlete leadership,

we draw on the organizational justice theory (Greenberg, 1987).

This theory describes and explains the importance of a leader’s

fairness in the workplace (Greenberg, 1990). Scientists have

translated organizational justice to the team sport context

(Jordan et al., 2004), in which they have focused on the

three original subtypes of organizational justice: distributive

justice (i.e., the perceived fairness of decision outcomes such

as the playing time; Adams, 1965): procedural justice (i.e., the

perceived fairness of the procedures used to obtain outcomes,

such as the use of objective scouting information; Thibaut and

Walker, 1975), and interactional justice (i.e., the interpersonal

treatment and the information individuals receive from the

coach; Bies and Moag, 1986).

Organizational justice research has been characterized by

studies on the unique eﬀects of these diﬀerent types of justice.

However, researchers have demonstrated that individual’s justice

perceptions may not be accurately evaluated when the various

dimensions of justice are diﬀerentiated (Hauenstein et al., 2001).

Therefore, a shift toward examining overall justice judgments

is recommended (Ambrose and Arnaud, 2005). For example,

Törnblom and Vermunt (1999) stated that the components of

fairness are only meaningful in relation to the overall fairness

of the situation (i.e., the justice of a situation as a Gestalt).

Accordingly, Greenberg (2001) suggested that when individuals

form justice perceptions, they do so with a “holistic judgment

in which they respond to whatever information is both available

and salient” (p. 211). In line with these suggestions, the present

research used the composite score of the three perceived justice

subcomponents and aimed to study whether athletes’ overall

perceived justice of the coach predict athletes’ leadership quality.

As mentioned before, to our knowledge no research has

been performed on the eﬀect of coach behavior on athletes’

leadership quality. However, previous research in the team sport

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De Backer et al. Fair Coaching Predicts Athlete Leadership

setting clearly demonstrated that coaches’ behavior strongly

predicts the extent to which team members’ take initiative by

correcting others or providing suggestions for improvement (Van

Puyenbroeck et al., 2017). In addition, research on justice in

sport did support a positive link between the perception of

fair coach behavior and athletes’ team identiﬁcation and team

cohesion (De Backer et al., 2011, 2015). Both team identiﬁcation

and cohesion are known to be crucial for group-oriented

behavior, such as cooperative behavior, task performance, and the

amount of eﬀort that people are willing to exert for their team

(Haslam, 2004; Høigaard et al., 2006). Furthermore, De Backer

et al. (2015) showed that team identiﬁcation and task cohesion

mediate the relation between perceived fairness of the coach and

athletes’ social loaﬁng.

As a result, this research does not only aim to provide evidence

that the perception of justice is an important antecedent of

high-quality athlete leadership in sport teams. It also aims to

explore the pathways that lead from the perception of justice to

the perception of high-quality athlete leadership. Therefore, our

hypothesized model was not only grounded on the organizational

justice theory, but also on the social identity approach (SIA;

Haslam, 2004). This theory, which distinguishes between a

personal identity and a social identity, explains how the perceived

fairness of the coach fosters athletes’ social identity, which in turn

is positively linked to increased levels of task cohesion on the

team. Personal identity refers to the self as a unique individual,

while social identity refers to the self as an interchangeable

group member (i.e., people’s sense of themselves as part of

“us”). Furthermore, SIA states that perceiving the self as an

interchangeable member of a category (i.e., the self-categorization

process) is the cognitive process associated with social identity.

Turner (1982) argued that the “switching on” of social identity

is the cognitive mechanism that makes group behavior possible.

Consequently, when an athlete identiﬁes with the team (e.g.,

based on situational incentives such as the presence of an

opponent team), this social identity will dominate, which in

turn will lead to the internalization of the norms and behaviors

prescribed by this group.

The closely related concept of team cohesion was deﬁned

by Carron et al. (1998, p. 213) as “a dynamic process that is

reﬂected in the tendency for a group to stick together and remain

united in the pursuit of its instrumental objectives and/or for

the satisfaction of member aﬀective needs.” They distinguished

between a social subcomponent (i.e., a general orientation

toward developing and maintaining social relationships within

the group) and a task subcomponent (i.e., a general orientation

toward achieving the group’s goals and objectives). Both

components have been further diﬀerentiated into an individual

(i.e., individual attraction to the group) and a group component

(i.e., group integration). Previous research (Heuzé et al., 2006; De

Backer et al., 2015) has indicated that especially task cohesion

plays a vital role in the group functioning of elite sport teams.

The group engagement model (Tyler and Blader, 2003)

connects both the organizational justice theory and the SIA. More

precisely, it indicates that the impact of perceived justice on

peoples’ engagement in groups is mediated by identity judgments.

In support of the group engagement model, De Backer et al.

(2011, 2015) showed that high perceived justice of the coach

shapes high levels of identiﬁcation with the team, which in turn

increases the team cohesion and decreases the social loaﬁng

among team athletes. The group engagement model explains

this increased team identiﬁcation as a logical consequence of

the fact that two essential functions of organizational justice

(i.e., quality of decision making, and quality of interpersonal

treatment) contribute to people’s assessment that it is safe for

them to merge their identity with their group. Furthermore,

the results of De Backer et al. (2011, 2015) showed that

team identiﬁcation and team cohesion were closely related

but diﬀerent constructs. In line with these results, Dutton

et al. (1994) stated that the perception of a shared categorical

identity (i.e., team identiﬁcation) creates an in-group bias

by accentuating the perceived similarities with other group

members and results in positive attitudes toward these in-group

members. This process eventually leads to increased intragroup

cohesion (Dutton et al., 1994). In other words, team identity

is the fundamental process of internalizing norms and values

of a group, which lead to more process-based outcomes such

as task cohesion.

Finally, in line with a previous statement of Zaccaro et al.

(2001), we assume that the relation between leadership and

team processes (i.e., team identiﬁcation and cohesion) is not

unidirectional, but bidirectional. More speciﬁcally, we expect

that these team processes may also foster athletes’ leadership

quality. Research in business settings has revealed that members

of highly cohesive and more speciﬁcally task cohesive groups

show more qualitative leadership behavior: (a) They plan

more eﬃciently and develop more appropriate performance

strategies (Hackman and Morris, 1975; Hackman, 1976); and

(b) They set and enforce stringent performance norms to

compel maximal eﬀort of all team members (Zaccaro and

McCoy, 1988). Zaccaro et al. (2001) conﬁrmed that task-oriented

cohesion is associated with strong work norms and that once

these norms have been established, they are enforced by the

members themselves (e.g., by communicating in various ways

with non-conforming individuals to bring them in line with

group work expectations). These behaviors closely align with

athlete leadership behaviors. Therefore, we expect that task

cohesion in particular will be positively related to athletes’

leadership quality.

To summarize, and based on this theoretical background,

we expect that perceived fairness of the coach will positively

predict athletes’ leadership quality. More speciﬁcally, we expect

that this prediction will be established through three intermediate

steps. That is, we expect that coaches’ perceived justice will foster

athletes’ team identiﬁcation, which in turn is hypothesized to

positively predict task cohesion. The increased levels of task

cohesion, in turn, are expected to be related to increased levels

of perceived athlete leadership quality.

Hypothesis 1: Athletes’ perceived justice of the coach positively

predicts the perceived quality of athlete leadership.

Hypothesis 1a: Athletes’ perceived justice of the coach

positively predicts team identiﬁcation.

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De Backer et al. Fair Coaching Predicts Athlete Leadership

Hypothesis 1b: Team identiﬁcation positively predicts task

cohesion.

Hypothesis 1c: Task cohesion positively predicts athlete

leadership quality.

All hypotheses were combined into one comprehensive

research model (Figure 1).

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Participants and Procedures

Participants

We deﬁned our sample size using the proposed ratio of sample

size/parameters by Kline (2005). He argues that this ratio should

at least be 5:1. Our model includes 30 parameters that need

to be estimated, which requires at least a sample size of 150

athletes. Based on the response rates of previous studies in

sport teams (e.g., Van Puyenbroeck et al., 2020), we contacted

30 teams in order to obtain this sample size. To recruit the

research sample, we ﬁrst listed all Flemish (i.e., Dutch speaking

part of Belgium) basketball and volleyball clubs from the highest

national to the ﬁrst regional level of the Belgian competitions.

Second, we randomly and blindly selected 18 Belgian volleyball

and 12 Belgian basketball teams. Consequently, the head coaches

of these 30 teams were contacted by telephone and informed

about the purpose and the design of the research. Twenty-

six coaches allowed their teams to take part in the study (i.e.,

seven male and 11 female volleyball teams, and ﬁve male and

three female basketball teams). Four basketball coaches indicated

that the workload of their players was too high and refused to

participate in the study. The ﬁnal research sample consisted of

239 senior athletes (i.e., 62 male and 99 female volleyball players,

and 54 male and 24 female basketball players). This gives a total

response rate of 81.3% (i.e., the response rate was respectively,

81.3% for volleyball, and 81.2% for basketball). It should be

noted that the response rates for two volleyball teams were

signiﬁcantly lower (i.e., 36.4 and 45.5%) than the response rates

of the other 24 teams (i.e., at least 58%). The lower response rates

could be partly explained by the fact that both teams struggled

with a lot of injured players. The mean age of the players was

23.10 years (SD = 4.95) and they had worked together for on

average 2.17 years with their current coach (SD = 1.84).

Procedure

During or after a practice, we verbally informed the athletes

about the objectives of our study and invited them to participate.

The accurate timing of this brieﬁng depended on the coach’s

preference. Athletes who agreed to participate ﬁrst provided

their written informed consent and afterward completed a

paper-and-pencil questionnaire. A trained research assistant was

present to clarify ambiguities and answer possible questions.

The current study was approved by the Doctoral School

of Biomedical Sciences (i.e., by the Doctoral Committee of

Kinesiology, Rehabilitation Sciences and Physiotherapy) of the

KU Leuven. Furthermore, the ethical standards of the American

Psychological Association (APA) were followed in the conduct

of the study. No rewards were given for participation, and prior

to completing the questionnaire, it was stated that participation

was completely voluntary and that the players’ anonymity was

guaranteed. Prior to the data analysis, the names of the athletes

and teams were replaced by numeric athlete and team ID’s. The

analyses were performed on this dataset. The original pencil-

and-paper questionnaires were stored in a locked cupboard,

thereby complying to the research institute’s data management

regulations. No individual or team scores were shared with the

coaches or other athletes/teams. We emphasized the importance

of responding independently and honestly to the questions.

Measures

Perceived Justice (Nine Items)

Justice perceptions were assessed with nine items selected from

a 12-item justice measurement used in previous research (De

Backer et al., 2015). This Dutch justice measurement was based

on the justice questionnaire developed by Colquitt (2001) in

the business setting and used a 5-point Likert scale (strongly

disagree = 1; strongly agree = 5). We shortened the questionnaire

to limit the workload of the athletes, by selecting the three highest

loading items of each of the three subscales previously used in

the team sport setting by De Backer et al. (2015). The shortened

nine-item measurement consisted of three items that assessed

the perception of distributive justice (e.g., “The minutes I play

per game are a true reﬂection of my commitment and eﬃciency

during the game”), three items that assessed the perception of

procedural justice (e.g., “The decisions of my coach are based

on objective information”), and three items that assessed the

perception of interactional justice by evaluating the degree to

which the procedures and outcomes are clear for the athletes

(e.g., “My coach motivated and argued his decisions”). A second-

order conﬁrmatory factor analyses (CFA) established that the

nine items formed three subcategories of justice (distributive,

procedural, and interactional justice), which in turn signiﬁcantly

contributed to an overall measurement of perceived justice

(χ

= 46.61, df = 23, p = 0.00; χ

/df = 2.03; GFI = 0.96; CFI = 0.98;

RMSEA = 0.07). The internal consistency of the overall justice

scale (Cronbach’s α = 0.87) was high.

Identiﬁcation With the Team (Five Items)

Team identiﬁcation was measured using ﬁve items. These items

were based on the fan identiﬁcation scale constructed by Boen

et al. (2008). We slightly rephrased the items to ﬁt the speciﬁc

team sport context (e.g., “this team” replaced “my old club”). The

reliability of this adapted scale was already demonstrated in a

sample of Flemish team athletes (Fransen et al., 2014a, 2015a;

De Backer et al., 2015). The ﬁve items used a 7-point Likert scale

(strongly disagree = −3; strongly agree = 3). An example item is “I

strongly identify with this team.” CFA showed good ﬁt to the data

(χ

= 3.05, df = 3, p = 0.38; χ

/df = 1.02; GFI = 1.00; CFI = 1.00;

RMSEA = 0.01) and the internal consistency of the ﬁve-item scale

was excellent (Cronbach’s α = 0.91).

Task Cohesion (Nine Items)

Task cohesion was questioned with the two task-related

subcomponents of the Group Environment Questionnaire (GEQ;

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FIGURE 1 | The hypothesized structural model of overall justice, team identiﬁcation, task cohesion, and athlete leadership quality.

Carron et al., 1998) using a 9-point Likert scale (strongly

disagree = 1; strongly agree = 9). Four items assessed the individual

attraction to the group-task subcomponent (e.g., “I am unhappy

with the team’s level of desire to win”), and ﬁve items assessed the

group involvement-task subcomponent (e.g., “Our team is united

in trying to reach its performance goals”). The CFA of the two-

factor task cohesion measurement showed an acceptable ﬁt to the

data (χ

= 63.91, df = 24, p = 0.00; χ

/df = 2.66; GFI = 0.95;

CFI = 0.96; RMSEA = 0.08). However, the factor loading for one

item of the individual attraction to the group subcomponent (i.e.,

“I am satisﬁed with the playing time I get”) was low (0.24). When

this item was removed, the ﬁt of the model improved signiﬁcantly

(χ

= 26.86, df = 17, p = 0.06; χ

/df = 1.58; GFI = 0.97; CFI = 0.99;

RMSEA = 0.05) and the internal consistency of the individual

attraction to the group subcomponent increased from α = 0.72

to α = 0.80. Therefore, we removed this item for further analyses.

Another consideration was the high correlation (r = 0.88)

between the two task cohesion subcomponents in this two-factor

model. In addition to this high correlation, the Cronbach’s α

for a combined subscale of overall task cohesion (0.89) was

higher than the Cronbach’s α for individual attraction to the

group-task (0.80) and group involvement-task (0.84) separately.

Therefore, we decided to combine the individual attraction to the

group-task (three items) and the group involvement-task (ﬁve

items) subcomponents into one latent variable (i.e., overall task

cohesion) for the following main analyses.

Athlete Leadership Quality (Four Items)

In line with previous overall leadership research (Chemers

et al., 2000; Fransen et al., 2014a) we opted for a single-item

approach of athletes’ leadership quality. Tenenbaum et al. (2007)

and Tenenbaum and Gershgoren (2011) already argued for a

higher ecological validity of such single-item measurements.

The current study examined the overall perceived leadership

quality of the four athlete leaders on each of the leadership

roles (i.e., task, motivational, social, and external leader). First,

the exact descriptions of the four leadership roles, as outlined

in previous research (Fransen et al., 2014b) and displayed in

Supplementary Appendix 1, were presented to the participants.

With these descriptions in mind, players had to appoint the player

in their team who corresponded best to the description of the

four leaders. Subsequently, participants were asked to complete

the item “To what extent do you think that this leader fulﬁls

his/her role as task/motivational/social/external leader well?” for

each of the appointed leaders on a 7-point Likert scale (very

bad = −3; very good = 3). This measurement already showed

to be reliable and valid in a sample of Flemish team sport

athletes (Fransen et al., 2014b). CFA conﬁrmed that each of

the four diﬀerent leadership roles signiﬁcantly contributed to an

overall measure of perceived athlete leader quality (χ

= 0.85,

df = 2, p = 0.66; χ

/df = 0.42; GFI = 1.00; CFI = 1.00;

RMSEA < 0.001).

Data Analysis

First, the hypothesized model was examined through Structural

Equation Modeling (SEM) with Mplus (Muthén and Muthén,

2017). Mplus also allows us to control for the nested structure

of our data, as players were nested within teams, by using the

TYPE = complex command. If we would ignore this nested

structure and only test a simple single-level model using SEM,

the standard errors would be inﬂated resulting in Type I error.

The statistical procedure used in this study therefore adjusts

the standard errors to prevent them from being inﬂated due

to clustering (for more information, see McNeish et al., 2017;

Muthén and Muthén, 2017).

The skewness of the studied variables ranged from −1.56 to

−0.05, which are considered acceptable values when conducting

SEM (Brown, 2015). SEM is a robust analytical technique of

which the assumptions are not sensitive to such small deviations

(Griﬃn and Steinbrecher, 2013). Furthermore, we used the

robust maximum likelihood estimator (MLR) for the estimation

of our models, which is robust to non-normality and non-

independence of observations when used with TYPE = complex

command (Muthén and Muthén, 2017).

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De Backer et al. Fair Coaching Predicts Athlete Leadership

We used the following ﬁt indices to evaluate model ﬁt: the

normed chi-square statistic (χ

/df), the Comparative Fit index

(CFI), the Tucker-Lewis index (TLI), and the Root Mean Square

Error of Approximation (RMSEA). While a non-signiﬁcant chi-

square (χ

) implies a good ﬁt of the model, the signiﬁcance of

this statistic is largely dependent on sample size. Accordingly,

we used the normed chi-square statistic (χ

/df), where a good

ﬁt is reﬂected by a ratio below 3/1 (Kline, 2005). Furthermore,

a good ﬁt of the model to the data is signiﬁed by CFI and TLI

values larger than 0.90 and an RMSEA equal or smaller than 0.08

(Hu and Bentler, 1999).

Finally, we tested an additional model in which we added

a direct link between athletes’ perceived justice and athlete

leadership quality. If this direct link is non-signiﬁcant, in

combination with a signiﬁcant indirect eﬀect of athletes’

perceived justice on athlete leadership in the hypothesized model,

this would conﬁrm that athletes’ perceived justice predicts athlete

leadership quality through the expected intermediate steps.

RESULTS

Descriptive Statistics, Correlations, and

Scale Reliabilities

Scales, means, standard deviations, and correlations for the

variables are provided in Table 1. Scale reliabilities (Cronbach’s

alphas) are provided on the diagonal. The signiﬁcant correlation

(r = 0.21, p < 0.01) between athletes’ perceived justice of the coach

and the quality of athletes’ leadership supports Hypothesis 1.

Furthermore, we performed an ANOVA to check for diﬀerences

between the volleyball and the basketball players. We found only

one signiﬁcant, and small diﬀerence of 0.24 in the mean score

on the 7-point Likert scale for team identiﬁcation. Taking into

account that this was the only diﬀerence between both sports, we

decided not to split the sample and to perform our main analyses

on the combined research sample.

Structural Equation Modeling

The hypothesized model showed a good ﬁt to the data

(χ

= 146.25, df = 74, p < 0.001; χ

/df = 1.98; TLI = 0.93;

CFI = 0.94; RMSEA = 0.06). The standardized regression path

coeﬃcients and the proportions explained variance are illustrated

in Figure 2. The results demonstrated that athletes’ perceived

fairness of the coach positively predicted team identiﬁcation.

Team identiﬁcation positively predicted task cohesion which, in

turn, positively predicted athlete leadership quality. In addition to

the eﬀects that are presented in Figure 2, all standardized indirect

eﬀects of the hypothesized model are depicted in Table 2. Further,

we added a direct link between athletes’ perceived fairness of the

coach and athlete leadership quality. This direct link was non-

signiﬁcant (β = 0.18, p = 0.09), while the indirect eﬀect of athletes’

perceived justice on athlete leadership quality, through team

identiﬁcation and, in turn task cohesion, was signiﬁcant within

the hypothesized model (β = 0.11, p = 0.01). The results of this

analysis conﬁrmed that athletes’ perceived justice predicts athlete

leadership quality through the expected intermediate steps.

DISCUSSION

Recent research indicated that high-quality athlete leaders

improve the eﬀective functioning of sport teams. More

speciﬁcally, some studies have demonstrated the positive

link between athlete leaders and team functioning and

performance in sport teams (Fransen et al., 2015a; Mertens

et al., 2018). Despite these promising results, no research

has examined the role of coaches’ behavior in fostering the

development of the athlete leadership quality in team sports.

The current research demonstrated that a speciﬁc aspect of

coach leadership, namely coaches’ fairness, was positively

related to athletes’ leadership quality through its inter-relations

with athletes’ team identiﬁcation and task cohesion, thereby

conﬁrming our hypotheses.

First, when coaches were perceived as fair, the identiﬁcation

of the athletes with their team seemed stronger. A possible

explanation for this positive relation can be found in the

group engagement model (Tyler and Blader, 2003). This group

engagement model assumes that “perceived justice provides key

information that shapes the degree to which people regard their

group as having high status, regard themselves as having high

status in their group, and identify with the group by merging their

sense of self with the group” (Tyler and Blader, 2003, p. 357).

These results are in line with the statement of Haslam et al.

(2011) that leadership is an active process that has the ability

to shape social identities. Furthermore, our ﬁndings support

the theoretically based assumption that team identiﬁcation is

a fundamental process of internalizing norms and values of

a group, which ultimately leads to more intragroup cohesion.

In other words, our results are in line with the social identity

mediation hypothesis, which suggests that identity evaluations

and concerns mediate the relationship between justice judgments

and group engagement (Tyler and Blader, 2003).

Second, the current research indicated that fair coach behavior

positively predicted athletes’ leadership quality and that this

prediction was established through three intermediate steps. That

is, coaches’ perceived justice fostered athletes’ team identiﬁcation,

which in turn positively predicted task cohesion. The increased

levels of task cohesion, in turn, were related to increased levels

of perceived athlete leadership quality. These results suggest

that fair coach behavior does not only bridge the gap between

leadership and followership (Haslam et al., 2011), it also has the

potential to improve the quality of athletes’ leadership within

sport teams. More speciﬁcally, fair coach behavior seems to guide

the important group processes of team identiﬁcation and task

cohesion, and as a result shapes a climate in which athletes

get the opportunity to develop qualitative leadership. A possible

explanation for the predictive value of justice for athletes’

leadership quality can be found in the statement of Haslam et al.

(2011, p. 110–111) that “leader’s fairness can unite us by both

creating and clarifying shared group memberships, and in this

way, that it can become a basis for inﬂuence and inspirational

leadership.” Indeed inspirational leadership is known to: (a)

Reinforce the common goals of the team (i.e., task cohesion) and

(b) Encourage interpersonal interaction among team members

(Joshi et al., 2009).

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De Backer et al. Fair Coaching Predicts Athlete Leadership

TABLE 1 | Scales, means, standard deviations correlations, and Cronbach’s alphas for all variables.

Variable Scale M SD 1 2 3 4

1. Overall justice 1, 5 3.46 0.81 (0.87)

2. Team identiﬁcation −3, 3 2.01 0.87 0.29** (0.91)

3. Task cohesion 1, 9 6.57 1.29 0.45** 0.57** (0.89)

4. Athlete leadership quality −3, 3 1.53 0.74 0.21* 0.35** 0.30** (0.65)

*p < 0.01; **p < 0.001. Scale reliabilities (Cronbach’s alphas) are provided in italics on the diagonal.

FIGURE 2 | The structural model of overall justice, team identiﬁcation, task cohesion, and athlete leadership quality with the regression coefﬁcients and the

proportions explained variance. All coefﬁcients presented are standardized and signiﬁcant (p ≤ 0.001).

Setting clear and common goals as well as high-quality

interpersonal interactions are essential conditions for qualitative

leadership behaviors in sport teams. Furthermore, previous

research (Hackman and Morris, 1975; Hackman, 1976; Zaccaro

and McCoy, 1988) demonstrated that members of highly task

cohesive groups: (a) Plan and develop eﬃcient and appropriate

performance strategies (i.e., task leadership), and (b) Compel

maximal eﬀort of all team members by setting and enforcing

stringent performance norms (i.e., motivational leadership). In

addition, Zaccaro et al. (2001) indicated that team members

with a high perception of task cohesion communicate in various

ways with non-conforming individuals to bring them in line

with group work expectations (task and motivational leadership).

In line with those ﬁndings, our results suggested that team

identiﬁcation and task cohesion are intermediate steps in the

relation between perceived justice of the coach’s and athletes’

leadership quality.

Limitations and Practical Implications

As with any research, the current study had not only

strengths, but also speciﬁc limitations. A ﬁrst limitation is the

cross-sectional nature of our data, thereby limiting our ability

to infer causality from the results. Based on previous research

(Hackman and Morris, 1975; Hackman, 1976; Zaccaro and

McCoy, 1988; Zaccaro et al., 2001; Haslam et al., 2011), we

constructed a theoretically founded research model. In line with

those studies, our results supported the fact that group dynamical

TABLE 2 | Standardized indirect effects and standard errors (SE) for all paths in

the model between predictors (in rows) and outcomes (in columns).

Task cohesion Athlete leadership quality

Effect (SE) Effect (SE)

Overall justice 0.22** (0.06) 0.11* (0.04)

Team identiﬁcation 0.34** (0.08)

*p < 0.05; **p < 0.001.

processes (i.e., team identiﬁcation and task cohesion) form the

intermediate steps in the relation between coaches’ justice and

athletes’ leadership quality. Nevertheless, some previous research

also indicated that athlete leadership qualities positively predict

athletes’ team identiﬁcation and cohesion in sport teams (Fransen

et al., 2014a). While our results seem contradictory to these

previous ﬁndings, Zaccaro et al. (2001) indicated that the relation

between leadership and team processes is reciprocal and not

unidirectional (i.e., leadership and team processes inﬂuence each

other). As a result, longitudinal and experimental studies are

required to assess the direction of the diﬀerent relations and to

explore how these relations ﬂuctuate across a season.

Another reason to be cautious when interpreting the

signiﬁcance of our ﬁndings is the lack of control variables or

other potential predicting variables in the model. For example,

previous studies revealed the importance of a mastery-oriented

climate in predicting the extent of initiative and constructive

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De Backer et al. Fair Coaching Predicts Athlete Leadership

peer corrections within sport teams (Van Puyenbroeck et al.,

2017). Others demonstrated that speciﬁc behaviors of the athlete

leaders (e.g., problem-solving skills) or certain personality traits

(e.g., extraversion) also predict the quality of athlete leaders

(Fransen et al., 2020a). Future work should therefore include

more variables as control variables or as additional potential

mechanisms that predict athlete leadership in addition to this

study’s variables. When these relations would be conﬁrmed,

this would increase the validity of our study ﬁndings and the

signiﬁcance of its implications.

Second, we assessed leadership quality with a commonly

used measurement of athlete leadership quality. This one-item

measure assessing the perceived quality with which athlete leaders

fulﬁlled their speciﬁc leadership role showed to be a valid measure

both in previous studies (Fransen et al., 2014a) and in the current

study. In this study, we asked participants to rate the quality of

the best leader in their team (on the diﬀerent leadership roles).

However, only rarely leadership is occupied by only a single team

member. Previous studies have shown that leadership is rather

shared, not only across, but also within each of these leadership

roles (e.g., Leo et al., 2019). Therefore, future studies should

consider using a social network approach, in which the leadership

quality of every team member is assessed, rather than only of the

best leader (e.g., Fransen et al., 2015b).

Third, although we controlled for the nested structure of

our data, we did not conduct a multilevel SEM with a second

level that included all of our variables at team level as our

sample consisted of players from only 26 diﬀerent teams. Maas

and Hox (2005) stated that it is not recommended to perform

such multilevel analyses based on such a small sample size at

team level (i.e., level 2). However, the variables of interest (e.g.,

perceived justice, team identiﬁcation, task cohesion, and athletes’

leadership qualities) potentially exhibit a signiﬁcant degree of

intra-group consensus within sport teams. In this study, the

within-group agreement (r

wg(j)

; James et al., 1984) was moderate

to high for perceived justice (r

wg(j)

= 0.82), team identiﬁcation

wg(j)

= 0.91), task cohesion (r

wg(j)

= 0.65), and athlete leadership

quality (r

wg(j)

= 0.91). For this reason, future research should

sample a larger number of teams and simultaneously test the

hypothesized relations at team level.

Notwithstanding those limitations, we want to underline that

the current study was an important ﬁrst step in the examination

of the link between perceived fair coach behavior and athletes’

leadership quality. More speciﬁcally, the interrelations between

perceived justice, team identiﬁcation (SIA), task cohesion,

and athletes’ leadership qualities oﬀer important insights into

the mechanisms that underpin the impact of coaches’ justice

on the development of qualitative leadership behavior of

senior team athletes.

From a more practical point of view, our comprehensive

research model indicates that the perceived fairness of

team coaches may possibly aﬀect key group processes and

consequently foster the quality of athlete leadership. Previous

research has shown that high-quality athlete leaders improve the

eﬀective functioning of sport teams (Price and Weiss, 2011, 2013;

Fransen et al., 2014a, 2015a). As a result, our model can be used

to optimize team performance in senior interactive sport teams.

An important practical take-away of our study is the fact that if

we value high-quality athlete leaders, we must not lose sight of the

impact of coach behavior. Nowadays, athlete-oriented leadership

development programs receive a lot of attention. However, our

results indicate that the quality of athlete leadership is not only

the result of speciﬁc leadership development programs that target

team athletes. It is also related to speciﬁc group dynamical

processes driven by fair coach behavior.

Therefore, coaches should be aware of the importance of

how athletes perceive their justice. Research in the business

setting suggested that there are a number of strategies, such

as the application of Leventhal’s rules (Leventhal, 1980; e.g.,

be consistent, suppress bias, . . .), and the provision of voice

(Skarlicki and Latham, 1996, 1997), to improve employees’

perception of fairness (Cropanzano and Greenberg, 1997).

Both strategies have been shown to be eﬀective even when

people were disappointed with the outcomes they received.

How leaders can apply these strategies is described in detail

by multiple researchers within the business context (Leventhal,

1980; Skarlicki and Latham, 1996, 1997; Greenberg and Lind,

2000). For a more in-depth description of the application of

organizational justice in a team sport setting we would like

to refer to Jordan et al. (2004). Furthermore, our ﬁndings

highlight the team dynamics that underpin the relationship

between fair coach behavior and the quality of athlete leadership.

In this regard, we suggest that coaches of interactive sport

teams should pay suﬃcient attention to create a sense of

shared social identity that results in the integration of the

individual tasks and goals of the players into the overall team

objectives. For a more detailed overview of how leaders can

create, represent, advance, and embed this sense of shared

social identity, we would like to refer to Haslam et al. (2011).

A practical example of how coaches could highlight that necessity

of a sense of “us-ness” is by emphasizing that the team goals

prevail over the individual goals at all times. Important in this

process is the framing of an eﬀective goal agreement, including

commonly agreed goals for both the individual players and

the team as a whole. This ensures that each player knows

how every speciﬁc task ﬁts within the bigger framework of the

team. Consequently, we assume that a collectively agreed goal

arrangement, due to the shared knowledge of the diﬀerent tasks,

will enhance athletes’ task cohesion and thus the quality of

athletes’ leadership.

To conclude, this study supported a positive link between

the perceived fairness of team coaches and athletes’ team

identiﬁcation and task cohesion. This increased team

identiﬁcation and task cohesion in turn leads to increased

perceived athlete leadership quality. Based on the current

ﬁndings, the organizational justice theory seems to be a

promising theoretical framework to underpin the impact

of coaches’ leadership in sport settings. From a practical

point of view, fair coaches strengthen the quality of athletes’

leadership and potentially may lead to a more optimal team

functioning. Therefore, coaches should not only attempt to

act in a fair manner toward all team members but should

also make sure that their actions are interpreted as fair

by team members.

Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 8 February 2022 | Volume 12 | Article 645764

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De Backer et al. Fair Coaching Predicts Athlete Leadership

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be

made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

ETHICS STATEMENT

The studies involving human participants were reviewed

and approved by the Leuven International Doctoral

School Biomedical Sciences. The Doctoral Committee of

Kinesiology, Rehabilitation Sciences and Physiotherapy. The

patients/participants provided their written informed consent

to participate in this study.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

MD, KF, FB, and GV contributed to the design of the

research. MD, SV, KF, BR, FB, and GV contributed to the

implementation of the research. MD, SV, KF, BR, FB, FM, and

GV contributed to the analysis of the results, and writing of the

manuscript. All authors contributed to the article and approved

the submitted version.

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found

online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.

2021.645764/full#supplementary-material

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Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 10 February 2022 | Volume 12 | Article 645764