The relationship between coach leadership, the coach-athlete relationship, team success, and the positive developmental experiences of adolescent soccer players

Abstract

Background: The goals of participation youth sports are primarily concerned with the facilitation of positive youth development as opposed to outright success. Consequently, there are strong theoretical and empirical links between sports coaching and athlete development. Transformational leadership behaviours, in particular, have been theoretically linked to positive developmental outcomes within a youth sport context, while the coach-athlete relationship is a key tool used by coaches who aim to teach life skills to young athletes. Outright team success has also been shown to correlate with important developmental variables such as a mastery climate and athlete perception of youth sports coa..