Differences In Socially Responsible Leadership And Leadership Self-efficacy In Collegiate Varsity Athletes Before And During COVID-19

INTRODUCTION: The COVID-19 pandemic forced college students to adapt to virtual instruction and loss of in-person student support, which may have impacted their psychological development and leadership capacity. As most college athletes continued to have access to student success resources during this period and returned to extracurricular activities relatively faster than their nonathlete peers, it is important to investigate whether the pandemic influenced leadership capacity differences between athletes and nonathletes. PURPOSE: Identify differences in socially responsible leadership (SRLS) and leadership self-efficacy (LSE) between college varsity athletes and nonathletes before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Secondary analyses were performed on data from the Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership (MSL), a national study of college student leadership development, including the 6 SRLS subscales and the LSE scale. Randomly selected from US colleges and universities, the 2015, 2018, and 2021 samples consisted of 82,682 (16.5% athletes), 59,983 (16.0% athletes), and 38,676 (11.6% athletes) participants, respectively. To compare athletes to nonathletes across each timeframe, we completed 1 t-test each for the 6 SRLS subscales, the SRLS omnibus, and LSE. RESULTS: Before the COVID-19 pandemic, similar trends in SRLS and LSE scores emerged between athletes and nonathletes, with athletes only exhibiting greater consciousness of self and LSE (Table). During the pandemic, athletes outscored their nonathlete peers in all SRLS subscales, SRLS omnibus, and LSE. CONCLUSIONS: Unlike prior to COVID, athletes scored higher on all outcomes during the pandemic than nonathletes. This could possibly be because sports were among the first extracurricular activities to return to normalcy and therefore allowed athletes to emerge as leaders among their peers on campus.