Discovering the leader of a volleyball team using the sociometric survey method

Abstract Background: Some specialists have said that leaders are born, some said that they are made, but regardless of what you believe, finding the right leader can be very important to a sport team performance. The leader can be chosen by the coach, but is not always accepted by the team. So, we believe that it is important for the leader of the team to be elected by the members of the group; knowing the relationships between the members of a group can help build strong connections and good group cohesion. Aim: The present study evaluates the connections within a volleyball team, establishing the sympathy relationships, mutual choice or rejection between players. These relationships can reveal our group dynamics, structure and hierarchy, so after analyzing those factors we can determine the group leader, the marginalized individuals and group cohesion and status of each member in the team. We also tried to find out if the formal leader named by the coach matches the leader of the group and if improving the relationships within our volleyball team and finding the right leader can improve the performance of our team. The group included 12 mini volleyball players, aged 10-12, that play in the women’s national youth championship. Methods: We used the observational method, the survey method and the socio-metric test. Results: The results of our research showed that the socio-metric test confirmed our presumptions and we can see that leaders of our group are DC (3), with a social index of 1, and GI (5), with a social index of 0.55. The cohesiveness of our group is good, with 7 mutual election and 5 mutual rejections, the coefficient of group cohesion is 0.11, and the Index of group cohesion is 0.03. Conclusions: The conclusions of our study showed that our group has the right leader and good cohesiveness.