Innebandytränarens egenskaper och beteende : En studie av innebandytränares och -spelares syn på ledarskapet inom dam- och herrlag på avancerad breddnivå

Abstract The main purpose of this study is to examine which essential traits floorball coaches for men’s and women’s team require. One issue was to see if there was any distinction between which leader traits and behaviors the players and the coaches regarded as essential. Another issue was to see if the coaches’ behaviors differed whether he was coaching men or women. Two men’s team and two women’s team, was selected to participate in the study. All four teams belong to the district of Småland and played in division 1 or 2 the current season, which is equivalent to advanced width level. The empirical material consists of both surveys accomplished by players, and interviews with the coaches. The research emphasizes that engagement, floorball competence and coherence were the most important traits as a coach. One significant difference between the genders was that female players desired more teaching skills, and male player’s emphasized more cooperative abilities. Both male and female player’s favored a coach that was democratic and focused more on the comradeship than the results. The theoretical topic (Larsson 2001) concerning gender in sport, says that women rather prefer an authoritarian coach, and men a democratic, which was inconsistent with the results of the survey. The survey shows that there is in fact less discrepancy between the male and female players’ attitudes on how they expect and desire their coaches to treat them, than the coaches assumed and earlier research has shown. This could be a serious problem, because in that case are coaches treating the players in a way that the players don’t want or expect. Another theoretical topic was a model of Mumford (figure 1). He builds his model of the fact that sooner or later occurs conflicts in an organization and therefore the coach or the leader requires some distinctive skills to deal with the conflicts and solve them. The coaches and the players thought that there are more conflicts in a female team than there are in a male team. Many of the female players also regard themselves as weaker as and less skillful than male players. The survey indicates that female players not only accept the gender differences, but also reinforce them. Some of the male players shared these opinions but not as explicit. Key Words: Floorball, Leadership, Coach, Traits, Behaviors, Gender.