Adolescent Male Perceptions of Leadership in a Sporting Context

Abstract

This article focuses on the sports context to understand better adolescent males‟ views of leadership. It employs methods to optimise adolescent voice while reducing the chances of imposing adult-centric perspectives on young people‟s views of leadership. Sixty-seven adolescent males who were members of Under 14 to Under 16 rugby teams in a Brisbane metropolitan club voluntarily participated in this study. Participants as a group reacted to videoed scenarios of seven sporting situations. Participants were asked about perceived risks associated with each situation, the level of admiration felt to accompany actions taken and perceptions of leadership, and they were encouraged to provide honest and frank responses. The results indicate that engagement with sport can expose adolescent males to situations that require leadership behaviours but perceptions of leadership behaviour seem to vary only marginally depending on each situation. It is suggested that future research should use further visual stimuli to initiate discussion about matters which have been shown to pose a „risky‟ or an „unwelcome‟ situation in which leadership actions in a sports context are depicted.