The Relationship between Coache's Leadership Styles and Player's Athletic Identity in Handball Super League of Iran

This aim of this study was to prioritize and examine the relationship between coache's leadership styles and athletic identity subscales in players of handball super league in Iran. The statistical population was equal to the sample including all the players playing in handball super league (n=144). The Leadership Scale for Sports (LSS) by Chelladurai and Saleh (1980) with 5 behavioral modes and athletic identity questionnaire (AIMS Plus) of Cieslak (2004) with 5 subscales of identity (reliability of 93% and 89% respectively) were used to collect data. For data analysis, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, Spearman correlation coefficient, variance analysis with repeated measures and Bonferroni post hoc test and Friedman test with SPSS software were used (P≤0.05). The results showed that education and training style (3.59±0.68 M±SD) was mostly used and democratic style (2.94±0.84 M±SD) had the least application by coaches. Likewise, positive influence subscale had the highest and monopolizing had lowest mean scores in athletic identity scale. The results of correlation was significant and positive only in the relationship between coache's education and training style and player's athletic identity in handball super league (r: 0.23). According to these findings, it seems that Coaches can take essential measures to maintain player's strong athletic identity through an awareness of suitable behavioral aspects during training and education.