LEADERSHIP CHARACTERISTICS

The aim of this study was to investigate the motives of aerobics parti-cipants in relation to their perceived and preferred leadership behavior of aerobic instructors. Eighty seven aerobics participants (aged between 16–59 y) completed the cross-sectional questionnaire survey. Instruments assessed participants ʼ exercise motivation, and perceived and preferred leadership behaviour of their aerobic instructors. We found that in aerobics participants the appearance- and health-related dimensions of exercise motivation are higher ranked than flexibility and social motives. Although aerobics participants show relatively high levels of competitive and social motives compared with general population, the highest ranked incentive for them seems to be physical fitness. Aerobics participants perceive significantly less instructors ʼ democratic decision making, instruction, social support and positive feedback than they prefer, while they perceive signi-ficantly higher amount of autocratic decision making compared with their preference. Key words: motivation for participation in aerobics, leadership be-havio