Interrelationships among leadership factors, task and ego orientation, and cohesion components of division II softball

The purpose of this study was to determine the interrelationships among leadership factors, task and ego orientation, and cohesion components of NCAA Division II Softball. The subjects for this study were 50 women softball players from the Gulf South Conference. Perceived leadership was measured by the Leadership Scale for Sports (Chelladurai and Saleh 1980). The Leadership Scale for Sports is composed of five factors that include: (a) positive feedback, (b) democratic behavior, (c) autocratic behavior, (d) social support, and (e) training and instruction. Cohesion was determined by the Group Environment Questionnaire (Widmeyer, Brawley, and Carron, 1985) which contains four factors of cohesion which include: (a) attraction to the group-task, (b) attraction to the group-social, (c) group integration-task, and (d) group integration-social. Goal orientation was assessed by the Task and Ego Orientation for Sport Questionnaire (Duda and Nicholls, 1989).

Pairwise correlation and stepwise regression were used for the data analyses. The results of the study indicated that there were positive relationships between training and instruction and the following factors: (a) attraction to the group-social, (b) group integration-task, and (c) ego orientation. The results also indicated that there were negative relationships for autocratic behavior with: (a) task orientation, and (b) attraction to the group-task. There were also positive relationships between positive feedback and the following factors: (a) attraction to the group-task, and (b) attraction to the group-social. The results also supported and provided further explanation of Chelladurai's (1979, 1993) multidimensional model and Carron's (1982) conceptual model.