Relationship between coaching leadership style and young athletes’ social responsibility

We investigated the relationship between young athletes’ perception of their leaders’ coaching behavior and the athletes’ level of social responsibility. Participants were 204 high school athletes from the Midwest region in the US. Hierarchical regression analysis results showed that there was a positive relationship between the athletes’ social responsibility and the coaches’ democratic behavior, and a negative relationship between social responsibility and coaches’ autocratic behavior. These results indicate that the athletes who perceived their coaches as behaving more democratically and less autocratically had a higher level of social responsibility than the others had. Our findings signify the importance of using types of coaching behavior that enhance student athletes’ social responsibility.