Leadership Behaviors of Athletic Training Leaders Compared with Leaders in Other Fields

OBJECTIVE
To determine self-reported leadership practices of head athletic trainers and program directors.

METHODOLOGY
A total of 238 athletic training leaders completed the Leadership Practices Inventory. Of these, 120 (50.4%) were head athletic trainers (HATC) and 118 (49.6%) were program directors (PD). Sixty-nine percent were men; almost all were white (97.1%), typically between the ages of 30 and 39 years (45.8%) and having 11 to 15 years of experience (23.9%).

KEY FINDINGS
Athletic training directors reported using leadership behaviors similar to those of other leaders. Compared with normative data, their self-reported LPI scores were significantly higher on Modeling and Enabling behaviors and lower on Inspiring and Challenging behaviors. The PDs reported using Inspiring, Challenging, Enabling, and Encouraging significantly more often than did the HATCs. No differences were found by ethnicity, age, years of experience or leadership practices. However, women reported more frequently engaging in the Model, Challenge, Enable and Encourage leadership practices. The authors note that this difference may be due to sample characteristics with more women as PDs than men and some of these differences may have been due to positional responsibilities rather than gender difference.