COACHING EFFICACY AND LEADERSHIP STYLE AMONG BULGARIAN FOOTBALL COACHES

Abstract

Coaches’ confidence in their own skills, their awareness of their emotions and the ability to control them, as well as their choice of behavior, according to a number of authors, influence their realization and the achieved sports results. The aim of the present study is to reveal the interdependencies between Coaching Efficacy, Emotional Intelligence and Leadership Style among Bulgarian football coaches. Methods: The research was done among 50 football coaches aged between 23 and 45 years with different level of qualification. In order to fulfill the aim, we used: 1) Coaching Efficacy Scale (CES), Feltz et al., 1999; 2) Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS), Schutte et al., 1998; 3) Revised Leadership Scale for Sport (RLSS), Zhang et. el., 1997. Results and discussion: The results reveal significant correlation interdependencies between the subscales of Coaching efficacy, Emotional Intelligence and part of the subscales of Leadership style, as well as between the subscales of Emotional intelligence and Leadership style. In this sense, our results confirm the data in the literature. We have found a slight correlation between Coaching efficacy and Leadership style, which is different from the published data. There are significant differences along some of the researched indexes depending on licenses, ages of players, coaching experience, experience as a player. The results from the regression analysis reveal that Emotional intelligence serves as a predictor of Coaching efficacy and Leadership style. Coaching efficacy does not influence directly the subscales of Leadership style.