Female football leadership styles: How leaders influence players’ perception of meaningful work

Purpose Applying the Self-Determination Theory (SDT), this research aimed to investigate whether female football players’ satisfaction of basic psychological needs explains the impact of transformational and transactional leadership on their sense of meaningful work. Based on self-determination theory, a conceptual model was developed hypothesizing that transformational and transactional leadership styles would be positively associated with meaningful work through the satisfaction of the three basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence and relatedness. Design/methodology/approach To test these hypotheses, a three-wave quantitative study was conducted using online questionnaires (n = 299) administered to female football players. Structural equation modeling was used to test the model. Findings The findings indicated that transformational and transactional leadership styles influenced meaningful work through the satisfaction of autonomy and competence needs but not relatedness. Originality/value These results have implications for the development of managerial strategies aimed to guide team leaders and coaches on how to better fulfill their players psychological needs. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.