Assessing athlete leadership and cohesion using a social network analysis approach

The study of athlete leadership has gained momentum over the past 15 years and is recognized as a vital component of team performance. Specifically, athlete leadership has been most studied with regards to its impact on the outcome of cohesion. As a result, a current gap in this area of research is the analysis of attribute data, such as tenure and self-reported athlete leadership, and how this attribute data is related to outcomes, such as cohesion. However, much of current research examining this relationship has utilized traditional statistical methods, limiting interpretation of data because team members are inherently interdependent. One approach that considers the interdependence of team members is social network analysis (SNA). SNA facilitates the study of social structures within networks of people, such as a sports team, as well as individual attributes influencing or being influenced by the network. The present study used SNA to examine athlete leadership and cohesion within a sports team of 22 female professional hockey players. Participants self-reported tenure, completed a self-rated athlete leadership questionnaire, and rated each of their team members on network variables of athlete leadership and cohesion. The results showed that high network density and low degree centralization was found for both athlete leadership and cohesion networks, with high indegree centralities for each team member. Further, a strong correlation was found between the athlete leadership and cohesion networks (p < 0.001), indicating a positive relationship between the athlete leadership ties and the cohesion ties. Lastly, significant correlations were found between self-rated athlete leadership and the networks of athlete leadership and cohesion. Together these data suggest that a cohesive team shares leadership responsibilities with many ties between teammates.