Measurement of Transformational Leadership and its Relationship with Team Cohesion and Performance Level

The present study explored the construct validity of a Differentiated Transformational Leadership Inventory and its relationship with team cohesion and performance level. Three hundred and nine club standard ultimate Frisbee players in the United Kingdom (mean age = 24.30 years, SD = 3.90) completed an adapted version of Hardy, Arthur, Jones, Shariff, Munnoch, Isaacs, and Allsopp et al.'s (in press) Differentiated Transformational Leadership Inventory and the Group Environment Questionnaire (Carron, Widmeyer, & Brawley, 1985 Carron, A. V., Widmeyer, W. N. and Brawley, L. R. 1985. The development of an instrument to assess cohesion in sport teams: The Group Environment Questionnaire. Journal of Sport Psychology, 7: 244–266. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Confirmatory factor analysis revealed evidence for the factorial and discriminant validity of the leadership inventory. Furthermore, results demonstrated that the leadership behaviors of fostering acceptance of group goals and promoting team work, high performance expectations, and individual consideration significantly predicted task cohesion; and fostering acceptance of group goals and promoting teamwork significantly predicted social cohesion. Performance level moderated these relationships. These results are discussed with reference to the conceptualization and measurement of transformational leadership, and how coaches’ leadership behaviors may influence cohesion depending on the level of athletes’ performance.