The comparison of sports coaches’ pre-season, in-season and post-season leadership behaviours in terms of sport psychology

This research aimed to compare sports coaches’ perceived leadership behaviours during a season (pre-season, in-season and post-season) in terms of sports psychology. A total of 232 permanent and contracted sports coaches who work for Provincial Directorates of Youth Services and Sports voluntarily participated to the research. Leadership for Sport Scale-LSS was used for data collection. The scale was applied to sports coaches three times (pre-season, in-season and post-season). Data was analysed by descriptive statistics and variance analysis. If the variance analysis is significant at 0.05 level, Benferonni analysis was used as a post-hoc test.According to variance analysis there is a significant difference for democratic behaviour [F (2,462)=3.723;p<0.025], training and instruction behaviour [F (2,462)=6.523;p<0.000] and social support behaviour [F (2,462)=7.925;p<0.000]. Moreover, there was not any significant difference for autocratic behaviour [F (2,462)=1.765;p>0.166] and positive feedback behaviour [F (2,462)=2.671;p>0.086].To sum up, it could be said that sports coaches leadership behaviours could differ among seasons.