Improving identity leadership through a novel targeted reflective practice intervention

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of a novel identity leadership-framed reflective practice intervention for developing sport coach leadership skills. We adopted an 8-week randomized control intervention design, including 5 experimental group coaches and their associated athletes (n = 47) and 4 control group coaches and their athletes (n = 32). Athletes’ perceptions of their coach engaging in identity leadership behaviours were measured at Weeks 0 and 8 for both groups. The experimental group coaches completed three specifically designed social identity-framed reflective practice tasks in Weeks 1, 3 and 5. Results showed that when controlling for baseline scores and compared to the control condition, the experimental condition reported significantly greater advancement, entrepreneurship, and impresarioship, but not prototypicality at postintervention. The results provide support for the use of tailored reflective practice interventions to elicit desirable identity leadership behaviours as perceived by athletes.