Leadership in Sport (Foundations of Sport Management)

Effective leadership is essential in any sports organisation, both in the boardroom and on the training pitch. Leadership in Sport is the first textbook to examine sports leadership in the round, across both management and coaching environments. It includes a dedicated section to underpinning core leadership theories, and employs a number of case studies throughout to show how best practice is applied in real world settings.

Drawing on expertise from some of the leading academics and practitioners throughout the world, and from both disciplines, the book covers various leadership issues including:

• facilitative leadership
• strategic leadership
• leading effective change
• diversity in leadership
• communication and empathy
• motivation and performance.

Key conceptual questions―the nature of leadership, its role in sport, styles of leadership, what constitutes ineffective leadership―and other contemporary issues are also explored to give students and practitioners the most complete and clear picture of contemporary leadership in sport. With useful features in every chapter, such as key terms and review questions, this is an essential text for sport management or coaching degree courses.

Ian O’Boyle is with the School of Management in the UniSA Business School, Australia. He is an expert in the fields of sport governance and leadership. His work appears in the leading sport management journals including European Sport Management Quarterly, International Journal of Sport Management, and Sport Management Review and also within traditional business and management based journals such as Journal of Career Development and Organization Development Journal. Dr O'Boyle's passion and interest within sport management research is fuelled from his previous experiences as an NCAA athlete in the United States and member of the Irish national basketball team

Duncan Murray is also with the School of Management in the UniSA Business School, Australia. He has published in a range of academic journals in areas, including: leadership, globalisation, celebrity endorsement in sport, customer behaviour in recreation and sport settings, tourism, appearance and attractiveness and the management of sport and recreation. He is an editorial board member for Sport, Business, Management: An International Journal. He is also a reviewer of academic papers for a number of leisure, recreation and sport academic journals, including the Journal of Leisure Research, Managing Leisure and Annals of Leisure Research

Paul Cummins is an expert in leadership within sport coaching having gained his PhD at the University of Ulster School Of Psychology, UK. He is a lecturer in performance psychology and has numerous research publications within the field. His research interests include various aspects of leadership in sport, athlete transitions, culture change and social identity, particularly as they apply within the sport coaching context. Within the applied sports setting, Paul is a qualified sport psychologist who has worked with Olympic level athletes and top coaches seeking to increase their leadership and overall coaching performance