ABSTRACT

This chapter reviews the body of literature that examines the relation between coaches’ leadership behaviours and positive youth development through sport. It introduces the Full-Range Leadership Model, specifically its transformational leadership (TFL) component, as a valuable theoretical approach for understanding coaches’ influence on youth development. One of the most dominant interpersonal relationships within the sport context is the coach-athlete relationship. TFL shares similarities with relationship-centred models of coaching that focus on enhancing the quality of coach-athlete relationships, including the 3 + 1 Cs Model, autonomy-supportive coaching, mastery-oriented coaching, and empowering coaching. Conversely, the transactional component of the Full-Range Leadership Model mirrors aspects of controlling coaching behaviours. In their review of the TFL literature in sport, C. A. Arthur and colleagues highlighted some of the key issues that exist within the current literature. Some of these issues relate to the methodological approaches that currently dominate the leadership literature.