A Solution-Focused Approach to Shared Athlete Leadership Development Using Mixed Methods

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Christopher MaechelDepartment of Sport and Health Sciences, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany

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Todd M. LougheadDepartment of Kinesiology, University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada

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V. Vanessa WerginDepartment of Sport and Health Sciences, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany

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Tom KossakSportpsychologie München GbR, Munich, Germany

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Jürgen BeckmannDepartment of Sport and Health Sciences, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences, University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia
Physical Education and Sport Sciences, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland

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DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1123/tsp.2021-0075
Keywords:
shared leadership; solution-focused brief therapy; leadership intervention
First Published Online:
15 Dec 2021
In Print:
Volume 36: Issue 2
Page Range:
101–114
Restricted access

Shared leadership is an emergent team phenomenon, emphasizing that it originates from the interaction of all team members. However, previous athlete leadership studies have focused on the individual level, omitting the role of team member interaction. In order to develop shared athlete leadership as an emergent team phenomenon, we utilized a solution-focused brief therapy paradigm, which uses coconstruction to engender change for social systems (e.g., sport teams). Sixty athletes from six sport teams (three in the experimental condition and three in the control condition) participated in a mixed-methods experimental design consisting of parallel quantitative and qualitative data collection along with a combined interpretation of these data. The quantitative results support a difference in development of shared leadership between groups, while the qualitative analysis resulted in four themes that indicate changes in interactional patterns and relational structures within the teams.

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