Longitudinal Stability of the Leadership Scale for Sports

This study evaluated the invariance properties of the Leadership Scale for Sport in a sample of 219 female netball players over four time points within a 10-week playing season. Support was found for Chelladurai and Saleh’s (1980) >hypothesized 5-factor structure of the Leadership Scale for Sport. Furthermore, differential stability and partial invariance was found for the Leadership Scale for Sport when all four time periods were included. Players perceived slight changes in their coach’s autocratic behavior and social support over the season; however, the three other leadership dimensions showed larger changes. The motivational aspects of training and instruction and positive feedback behavior were perceived to increase, while democratic behavior simultaneously decreased in the second half of the season. Furthermore, perceptions of leadership within teams showed a high level of homogeneity with the exception of positive feedback behavior.