ABSTRACT

HIGHLIGHTS

• Leadership is collectively performed through social action.

• Relational leadership recognizes and promotes mutual influence.

• Leadership is practiced through interactions and meaning making.

• Experience and intuition influence leadership practice.

• Shared understandings enhance collective performance.

Guided by the emerging literature on relational leadership this paper discusses how leadership is socially constructed in the context of a professional sporting organization. An in-depth exploratory case study with a championship winning professional team was conducted for the duration of the championship season. Data was collected through interviews with various members of the organization as well as through observations of training and game sessions. The findings highlight that leadership is practiced through interactions between individuals, informed by established and ongoing relationships. Specifically, leadership is found to be practiced through verbal interactions, non-verbal interactions, and social processes of meaning making. The outlined relational approach is concerned with the collective performance of leadership through social action, revealing insights that can inform leadership practice, development, and recruitment in professional sporting organizations. The paper concludes by suggesting potential directions for research on leadership in professional sport based on conceptualizing leadership as a relational phenomenon.

摘要

强调

• 领导力是通过社会行动集体执行的。

• 关系型领导承认并促进相互影响。

• 领导力是通过互动和意义建构来实践的。

• 经验和直觉会影响领导力实践。

• 共同的理解提高了集体绩效。

在新出现的关系型领导文献的指导下，本文讨论了领导力是如何在职业体育组织的背景下进行社会建构的。在冠军赛季期间，对一支赢得冠军的职业球队进行了深入的探索性案例研究。数据是通过与组织的各个成员的访谈以及对培训和比赛课程的观察来收集的。研究结果强调，领导力是通过个人之间的互动来实践的，并通过建立和持续的关系来实现。具体而言，人们发现领导力是通过语言互动、非语言互动和意义建构的社会过程来实践的。概述的关系方法关注通过社会行动的集体领导绩效，揭示可以为专业体育组织的领导力实践、发展和招聘提供信息的见解。本文最后提出了基于将领导力概念化为一种关系现象的职业体育领导力研究的潜在方向。