The Relationship between Coach's Leadership Styles and Group Cohesion in the basketball teams participating in the 10th Sport Olympiad of male Students

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between coach's leadership styles and team Cohesion in the basketball teams participating in the 10th Sport Olympiad of male Students. Athletes (n=113) from 14basketball teams completed the perceived version of the leadership scale for sport (LSS) and the group environment questionnaire. The LSS contains 40 items that measures five dimensions of leadership behaviors- training and instruction, democratic behavior, autocratic behavior, social support and positive feedback. The GEQ with 18 items assess the two dimensions of team cohesion- task and social cohesion. Data were analyzed with Pearson correlation coefficient, repeated measures ANOVA, and Bonfferoni post hoc test in significance level of P≤0.05. Results showed coach’s behaviors of training and instruction, democratic and social support were all positively correlated to team cohesion, but coach’s behaviors of positive feedback and autocratic had not significant relationship with group cohesion. Comparison of coach’s leadership styles demonstrated that basketball coaches exhibited higher in training and instruction and lowers in autocratic behavior. Also Results showed that successful and unsuccessful teams tend to be more cohesion levels of these teams was more than less successful teams. In summary, the effect of leadership styles on group cohesion and team success obviously demonstrated the importance of using the appropriate leadership styles that can redound to better team success and performance. This results agree with more studies among results of Hang (2004) and Hoseini (2010).