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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Sport Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1500867
This article is part of the Research Topic Motivations For Physical Activity - Volume III View all 4 articles

How Coach Leadership Behavior Influences Athletes' Performance: The Chain-Mediated Role of the Coach-Athlete Relationship and Psychological Fatigue

Provisionally accepted
Rui Liu Rui Liu 1*Shanshan Wang Shanshan Wang 1Jun Li Jun Li 2
  • 1 Chengdu Sport University, Chengdu, China
  • 2 Tulufan Vocational Technical College, xinjiang, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Athletes' psychological quality and competitive level are deeply influenced by coaches' leadership behavior. It is of far-reaching significance to systematically investigate the relationship between them for carrying out scientific training and improving athletes' competitive level.This study aims to investigate the relationships among coach leadership behavior, the coach-athlete relationship, psychological fatigue, and athletes' performance, providing insights into enhancing athletes' sports performance.Using simple random sampling, 556 athletes (44.60% female) were recruited from professional training teams in the Xinjiang and Shanxi provinces of China as the study sample. The sample includes 47 second-class national athletes, 276 first-class national athletes, 171 master-class athletes, and 62 international-level athletes. Data were collected through offline surveys using the Coach Leadership Behavior Scale, the Tennis Performance Scale, the Coach-Athlete Relationship Questionnaire, and the Athlete Psychological Fatigue Questionnaire.1) Democratic leadership behavior, autocratic leadership behavior, training and instruction behavior, social support behavior, and positive feedback behavior are positively correlated with the "coach-athlete" relationship and athlete performance, and negatively correlated with psychological fatigue.2) The "coach-athlete" relationship and psychological fatigue can serve as both simple mediators and chain mediators between democratic leadership behavior, autocratic leadership behavior, training and instruction behavior, social support behavior, positive feedback behavior, and athlete performance.This study systematically explored the complex relationships among coach leadership behavior, the coach-athlete relationship, psychological fatigue, and athletes' sports performance. The findings suggest that positive coach leadership behavior may contribute to the development of athletes' performance. Furthermore, the study underscores the significance of the coach-athlete relationship and psychological fatigue as key mechanisms through which coach leadership behavior influences athletes' sports performance.

    Keywords: coach leadership behavior, Mediation, Influence mechanism, Coach-Athlete Relationship, Athlete sport performance

    Received: 24 Sep 2024; Accepted: 30 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Liu, Wang and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Rui Liu, Chengdu Sport University, Chengdu, China

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