Transformational Leadership and Organisational Effectiveness in Wellington Secondary School Sport Coordinators

Leadership is one of the most commonly observed yet least understood constructs in management. Despite this, many will contend that an effective leader will precede an effective organisation. Of the various theories on leadership, the transformational-transactional model has been promoted as a most desirable and effective style (Bass & Riggio, 2006; Northouse, 2012). This leadership style has been shown to positively enhance followers’ job satisfaction, extra effort and perceived leader effectiveness. Within the New Zealand sporting landscape, and more specifically secondary school sport, a sportscoordinator who exhibits transformational leadership may have the potential to overcome a scarcity of resources and empower coaches to perform beyond the resources available and beyond their expectations. This research followed a mixed-methods research design by collecting data through self-administered surveys and semi-structured interviews. At the first stage, a convenience sample of twenty-six Wellington sport coordinators completed a self-rater version of the Multifactoral Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), in order to determinine their leadership profile, their predominant leadership style and related perceptions of organisational effectiveness. As a second stage, semi-structured interviews with four sport coordinators provided a richer and deeper understanding of the school sport environment and how leadership can positively affect outcomes. More than a decade earlier, Pope (2002) claimed that secondary school sport had seldom been the subject of attention for researchers, particularly within New Zealand educators. To this day, there is still a limited knowledge base; therefore, the aim of this research was therefore to determine what constitutes an effective leader in the New Zealand Secondary School Sport context. In addition, findings are intended to provide insight about which leadership attributes are valued as contributing to a sports coordinators’ ability to manage their school’s sporting provision effectively. Findings show that the transformational leadership behaviours of secondary school sports coordinators are significantly related in several ways to aspects of organisational effectiveness. By contrast, the research also finds that coordinators who exhibited management-by-exception and laissez faire leadership styles and behaviours were perceived as less effective, whilst also having minimal positive impact on coach job satisfaction and exertion of extra effort by followers and others in the system. Of particular interest are findings that indicated transformational leaders are perceived as most effective, especially in attracting and retaining coaches, whilst specific behaviours such as contingent reward behaviours may also impact coaches to exert extra effort in executing their roles. Practical implications are drawn from the findings and are provided to assist secondary schools in considering how to ensure quality and sustainability in sporting provision, and how to seek, recruit, promote, and retain sports coordinators who exhibit transformational leadership behaviours. The insights provided may also allow researchers and educators to better understand the relevance of leadership styles in influencing different aspects of organisational effectiveness in secondary school sport. The research was necessarily limited to secondary school sport in the Wellington region of New Zealand, and generalisability is only possible to the extent that the research complements other studies. The research was also limited by time, and access to relevant secondary school sport coordinators. Nevertheless, the research was intended to explore a previously under-researched domain, and succeeds in this matter. However, future research would benefit from increasing sample size, greater cross-sectional representation of schools, and employing ethnographic research methodology to assist in explaining the phenomenon further and to a greater depth. Additionally, it is recommended to utilise alternative and more comprehensive conceptions of organisational effectiveness to more fully understand the consequences of leadership behaviours.