ABSTRACT
The primary purpose of this chapter is to apply knowledge gained from empirical research on transformational leadership (primarily though not limited exclusively in organizational settings) to assess the extent to which transformational leadership can enable a better understanding of psychological factors within sports. In doing so, a second and equally valuable purpose can be readily achieved, namely facilitating a greater understanding of transformational leadership (Wolfe et al., 2005) by broadening its focus of inquiry. This latter purpose may be especially useful, as an examination of the content of even the most recently published texts on transformational leadership (e.g. Bass and Riggio, 2006) revealed that the application of transformational leadership to sports has received scant attention – despite the fact that today, sports is undoubtedly ‘big business’.
