Coaches’ Full Range Leadership Behaviors and University Athletes’ Personal Development and Negative Experiences: Is It All About Relationship Building?

Sport coaches can facilitate positive youth development in athletes. However, little is known about how coach behaviors that span the full range leadership model (i.e. FRLM) impact development. In this study, we asked whether FRLM coaching behaviors promote positive development outcomes and mitigate negative experiences in the university sport context and whether these effects are mediated by perceptions of a quality coach-athlete relationship. In total, 605 Canadian university athletes (<i>M_age</i> = 20.09 <i>SD</i> = 1.74) completed the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, the University Sport Experience Survey, and the Coach-Athlete Relationship Questionnaire. Mediation analyses assessed the explanatory role of athletes' perceived coach-athlete relationship in associations between coaches' leadership behaviors and athletes' reports of personal developmental outcomes and negative experiences. The coach-athlete relationship was positively associated with positive development outcomes in university athletes (i.e. initiative, basic skills, interpersonal relationships, teamwork and social skills, and adult network and social capital) and inversely associated with negative experiences (i.e. stress, negative peer interactions, social exclusion, and negative leadership). Findings only partially supported the assertion that transformational leadership promotes positive development and reduces negative experiences by enhancing the coach-athlete relationship. The results support benefits of transformational coaching when targeting positive development, similar to youth sport, but suggest the coach-athlete relationship has little explanatory value when examining associations between coach leadership and positive development outcomes in university sport. Instead, the coach-athlete relationship does help account for the mitigation of negative experiences in the university sport context.