Föredraget ledarbeteende - en jämförelse mellan män och kvinnor, samt mellan lagidrottare och individuella idrottare

The aim of the study was to a) examine what leader behaviors individual and team athletes prefer and b) examine what leader behaviors men and women prefer. A questionnaire (The Leadership Scale for Sports) was distributed to 168 individuals, from which 130 were included in the study. The data was analyzed in SPSS, in which a three-way and a two-way variance analysis were performed. The results showed that individual athletes preferred the behavior dimensions “Training and instruction”, “Positive feedback” and “Democratic behavior” to a higher degree than did team athletes. Men preferred “Autocratic behavior” to a higher degree than did women, while women preferred “Positive feedback” to a higher degree than did men. No interaction effect was found between gender, type of athletic group and preferred leader behavior in this study. A conclusion that can be made is that preferred leader behavior varies between men and women as well as between team and individual athletes regarding some of the behavior dimensions. Much of the previous research is dated, why new research in the subject would be valuable in order to see if the older research is representative for todays sport situation