The myth of the team captain as principal leader: Extending the athlete leadership classification within sport teams.

Although coaches and players recognize the importance of leaders within the team, research on athlete leadership is sparse. The present study expands knowledge of athlete leadership by refining the current classification and exploring the importance of the team captain. An on-line survey was completed by 4451 players and coaches within nine different team sports in Flanders (Belgium). The results revealed that the proposed additional role of motivational leader was perceived as clearly distinct from the already established roles (task, perceive their captain as the principal leader on any of the four roles. These findings underline that the leadership qualities attributed to the captain as the team‟s formal leader are overrated. It can be concluded that leadership is spread throughout the team; the social, and external leader). Furthermore, almost half of the participants (44%) did not informal leaders rather than the captain take the lead, both on and off the field.