LEADERSHIP DIMENSIONS PREFERRED AMONGST BRAZILIAN SOCCER COACHES

Abstract The aim of the study was to assess the leadership style of soccer coaches who work in youth development clubs in the city of Barueri- SP, Brazil, implementing descriptive research based on the application of the Scale ELRE version of self-perception. 25 male soccer coaches participated in the study, aged between 24 and 57 years (average 41.32±11.65 years) and the statistical treatment of data applied the calculation of Cronbach's Alpha for reliability, mean, standard deviation and median for the dimensions of the instrument. The results related to the Alpha showed stability of the instrument with a total value of 0.87. Regarding the mean, median and standard deviation for each dimension, it has been found that the situational dimension was of 4.21±0.84 (median=4), social behavior support was 3.71±1.31 (median=4), in behavior training-instruction was 4.46 ±0.74 (median=5), for the democratic dimension the average was 3.16 ±1.12 (median=3); autocratic was 3.06 ±1.48 (average=3) and finally concerning the dimension positive reinforcement was revealed at an average of 4.28 ±0.97 (median=5). Therefore, on the basis of the data analysis we can infer that in soccer the predominant behavior of coaches consists of the adoption of positive reinforcement and training-instructio