Exploring the perceptions of leadership in Hong Kong rugby

Abstract

The concept of leadership within sports coaching continues to fascinate and intrigue a multitude of stakeholders. There is still a need for a greater understanding of its role within a complex, dynamic field of inquiry that seemingly relies heavily on the ‘coach as leader’ for a multitude of outcomes (e.g. performance success, athlete development, social outcomes). Given the call for more contextually specific and action orientated research, the aim of this study was to explore the perceptions of coach leadership within the Hong Kong rugby union environment. The study adopted an interpretive paradigm to gain deep insight into coaches’ and players perceptions of leadership in rugby. Data was collected from 16 participants via three separate online focus groups. Qualitative thematic analysis was used to analyse and interpret the data. The findings suggest that for leadership to be effective, coaches must possess a socio-cultural understanding of their context, have a clear vision for their team and have a principle of transformational and value-based leadership to assist with decision making. Additionally, coaches must become role models and demonstrate authentic leadership characteristics to be able to build and maintain relationships with the people in their organisation through effective communication. Sharing leadership appeared to be an effective method adopted by coaches to enhance leadership throughout a rugby organisation. We suggest that the results provide a grounding for coach learning within a unique coaching context.

Keywords

Authenticity coach development communication role model values

Introduction

Rugby union has been woven into the fabric of Hong Kong dating back to the late 1870s. Players from this era were composed of British expatriates who engaged in rugby union for recreation. Rugby union and the development of the game have been and still are inextricably linked with the socio-economic and political development of the region.¹ Fast forward 150 years and the development of rugby in Hong Kong has completely transformed with the introduction of domestic leagues and international teams for both senior and age grade men and women in 15-a-side and rugby sevens. Given this growth, Hong Kong is recognised as an emerging rugby nation with fully professional rugby players and coaches who hold leadership roles across all rugby departments.² As a consequence of this competitive growth and emerging status, Hong Kong provides a unique case study context to further explore the concept of leadership in sport.

The concept of leadership in sports coaching is well researched. However, the complexity associated with such a construct has provided numerous definitions.³ One such definition proposed is that coach leadership is a behavioural process that is used to increase athlete performance and satisfaction.⁴ Woods and West⁵ defined it as ‘a specialised role that an individual occupies and the process of influence’ (p. 381). There has been much debate in the literature regarding the actual definition of leadership, to the extent that some authors have adopted a position of not defining it at all given the complexity.⁶ For this paper, the authors suggest that leadership in a coaching context must encompass not only a unique contextual understanding of the coaching process, but also a critical emphasis must be placed on the socio-cultural environment.

The complexities of defining leadership may pose questions into its importance, but high-quality leadership at all levels within sports organisations (i.e. board members, performance staff, coaches and athletes) is crucial for the growth and effectiveness of sports teams.⁷

Although there has been some scepticism, effective leadership in elite sport has been shown to be a stronger predictor of success than intellectual ability.⁸ The importance and effectiveness of leadership in sport can rely on the association between two significant factors. What the coaches do in relation to leadership and how coaches and athletes work together.⁹

Various methodologies have been adopted to assess leadership, coach behaviour and the perceptions of the coach–athlete relationship. This has been conducted mainly through questionnaires, observational measures and interviews. The most utilised questionnaires include the Leadership Scale for Sports (LSS),¹⁰ the Perceived Motivational Climate in Sport Questionaire-2 (PMCSQ-2)¹¹ and a questionnaire that measures perceptions of their coaches’ interpersonal behaviours.¹² The LSS was seminal in the assessment of coach behaviours and leadership. It consisted of five subscales, two of which measure the coach's motivational tendencies (social support and positive feedback), two of which measure the coach's decision-making style (autocratic and democratic), and one that measures the coach's instructional behaviour (training and instruction). From the LSS, increasing attention is placed on a coach's leadership style, namely autocratic and democratic. Although contentious that a coach would adopt a particular style completely, autocratic leaders usually emphasise personal authority, require strict discipline, expect players to obey orders unconditionally and exhibit a variety of ego-building behaviours.¹³ Conversely, coach leadership based on democratic behaviours such as positive feedback and social support have been related to athletes’ positive outcomes such as higher levels of athletes’ sport participation, self-determined motivation, fun, group cohesion and lower levels of anxiety and burn-out.^14–18

Despite questionnaires providing useful data surrounding leadership behaviours in coaches, arguments have been postulated that a questionnaire may not provide the depth needed for leadership in sports coaching, and a richer understanding regarding the importance of context is needed.¹⁹

Interestingly, it has been highlighted that there are several similarities between democratic coaching behaviours and transformational leadership.²⁰ In the same vein as democratic leadership, the transformational leader broadens and increases the interest of those that they lead; they act morally and motivate their followers to go beyond individual self-interest for the good of the group. Furthermore, they address and engage each individual follower in true commitment.²¹ Importantly, it has been suggested that coaches adopting a transformational leadership style may be best suited to the challenges posed by elite-level rugby.²² These challenges are further highlighted through the complex context that a team game such as rugby union provides, where it has been presented that managing relationships with all stakeholders have been identified by coaches as a key challenge in a professional environment.²³

One of the central tenants of transformative leadership is developing athletes into leaders themselves by focusing on assets of competence, confidence, connection, character and care.²⁴ To achieve this, transformative leadership was conceptualised as containing four behavioural components, namely, idealised influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualised consideration. Idealised influence refers to the coach acting as a role model by discussing and modelling pro-social values or behaviours and accepting that vulnerability and humility may be necessary. Inspirational motivation relates to coaches discussing goals and expectations with players by implementing a collective vision. Coaches must provide meaningful and challenging tasks and roles, provide space to athletes to achieve this and express confidence in their capabilities. Another component of transformative leadership relates to coaches intellectually stimulating players. This could be displayed by coaches emphasising the learning process, eliciting athlete input and sharing the decision making and leadership responsibilities. Lastly, transformative leadership relies on coaches considering the individual by showing real interest in the emotions of the athletes and recognising athlete accomplishments and contributions personally or collectively. In accordance with these characteristics, transformative leaders are open to new suggestions, are effective communicators, have fundamental values, set clear expectations as well as empower those whom they lead by creating new learning opportunities for them.²³

For long-term positive results, research has suggested that coaches adopt value-based leadership (VBL).²⁵ There are three proposed dimensions to VBL, including coaches leading self, leading others and leading the organisation.²⁶ Leading the self requires coaches to illustrate their values through actions. The personal values become a form of self-management that underpin self-reflection and self-awareness. Once the values of self are situated then the coach can develop a high level of collaboration to lead the team. This culminates in creating connections between people to lead the organisation. VBL has been researched in rugby union.²⁷ In this study they investigated a rugby union coach who applied an authentic coaching philosophy or ‘belief triad’ (leadership, culture, game strategy) which was underpinned by the coach's core values and behaviour within a different culture.

The world has become more interconnected than ever before through international sport, which in turn has initiated an increase in coach–athlete interactions between members of differing cultural groups in both individual and team sports.²⁸ Research has labelled this trend as ‘cross culture coaching’ and becomes particularly relevant when discussing leadership.²⁹ Indeed, certain leadership styles have often been associated with various cultures and contexts.³⁰ Members of collectivist societies such as Japan, Korea, China and Hong Kong value the needs and wishes of the group over those of the individual.³¹ Early research has suggested that collectivist societies prefer an autocratic form of coach leadership.³² Conversely, individualistic cultures such as the USA, New Zealand, Australia and Western Europe tend to exhibit a greater sense of self and autonomy which promotes the individual over the group.³³ Relative to the sporting domain, individualistic societies tend to favour a democratic style of coach leadership.³⁰

Hong Kong was selected as the take-off point for this study as it has professional rugby players and coaches working across men's, women's and age grade teams. The aim of this study was to explore Hong Kong coaches and players’ perception of leadership. The specific objectives were to:

Explore coaches and players’ perceptions of the value and importance of leadership within rugby;

Identify coaches and players’ opinions on the characteristics of effective leadership.

Methods

To address the aims and objectives, the study adopted a relativist ontology and an interpretive epistemology. The intention was to elicit the subjective interpretations of the participants in relation to their leadership behaviours and practices as professional sport coaches and players.^34,35 Interpretive research is a paradigm which allows researchers to gain a deep insight into individual issues within social worlds constructed by interests, emotions and values.³⁶ The interpretive paradigm, therefore, was used within the study with data collected through semi-structured online focus groups with Hong Kong rugby coaches and players. Despite the lack of face-to-face interaction, the focus groups did gather rich detailed accounts of coaches and players perceptions of leadership in rugby.

Participants

This study consisted of nine male coaches, two female coaches and five male players (player elected leadership group) with age ranges from 27 to 50 years and who are all employed by the Hong Kong Rugby Union. This group was purposively sampled for their experiences of leadership within rugby union. The group consisted of various nationalities with coaching experience ranging from 5 to 20 years and playing experience ranging from 5 to 11 years (Table 1). The positions of the group ranged from general managers, head coaches, assistant coaches and current players who were all knowledgeable about leadership within rugby union. Indeed, this allowed for the data gathered to be specific for the aims and objectives of the research.³⁷ The ethical implications of partaking in the study were discussed and signed informed consent was obtained in relation to the participants. All coaches were reminded of their free will and that involvement was totally voluntary with no consequence upon withdrawal at any time. Furthermore, references made within the results to specific teams or individuals that could identify the participants were removed or replaced with pseudonyms.

Table 1.

Coach demographics.

Pseudonym	Age	Position	Nationality	Coaching/playing experience
Coach 1	43	Head coach	English	17 years
Coach 2	41	Head coach	English	15 years
Coach 3	50	Head coach	Welsh	18 years
Coach 4	42	Head coach	Samoan	12 years
Coach 5	37	Head coach	Hong Kong	5 years
Coach 6	40	Head coach	Scottish	20 years
Coach 7	32	Head coach	English	8 years
Coach 8	36	Head coach	Scottish	10 years
Coach 9	35	Head coach	Welsh	12 Years
Coach 10	32	Assistant coach	English	9 years
Coach 11	27	Assistant coach	Irish	4 years
Player 1	31	Player	Hong Kong	8 years
Player 2	27	Player	Hong Kong	4 years
Player 3	28	Player	Hong Kong	6 years
Player 4	34	Player	Hong Kong	11 years
Player 5	27	Player	English	4 years

Procedure and method

All participants were recruited via personal email or WhatsApp messenger. Three separate semi-structured focus groups (FG) were conducted which were recorded and ranged between 50 and 65 min in length. With the global outbreak of COVID-19 at the time of the research, restricting travel and social meetings, all three FGs were conducted via Zoom. The use of such video conference technology has increased in qualitative research over recent years and is a valid method to obtain data when face-to-face opportunities are not possible.^38,39 The Zoom focus group with coaches 1, 2 and 3 was conducted first, the second FG, with coaches 4–11, was conducted a week later and finally a separate FG was conducted with the players. The FGs were conducted based on availability and to avoid scheduling conflicts. The FGs were semi-structured in nature which allowed the researcher to guide the questions driven by the study's aim and objectives.

Data analysis

All FG were transcribed verbatim and thematic analysis was utilised as a method for identifying, analysing and reporting patterns (themes) within the data.⁴⁰ The first step of data analysis consisted of organising the transcripts ready to be coded and subsequently analysed. The second step consisted of familiarisation of the data set by reading several times with the research aim and objectives providing the ‘golden thread’.⁴¹ During this process, themes began to be generated and then coded as higher-order themes related to the aim and objectives. Finally, clear meanings of each theme were generated from the data to demonstrate the perceptions of leadership in rugby union.

Trustworthiness and credibility

Both researchers’ considerable experience in academia, professional coaching and coach education provides a level of credibility to the findings.³⁸ This credibility is further supported and enhanced through the participants’ experience and successes as professional coaches. Recognising researchers are liable to bias, there were regular meetings with a critical friend to critique the research and identify any assumptions that may underpin data analysis. ⁴¹ Whilst this study utilises qualitative inquiry into coaches and players’ interpretations from a relativist perspective, the judgement of quality is considered through a list of characteristics as opposed to a preordained and universal standard.⁴² This approach allows readers to make their own inferences on the quality of the research by considering characteristics such as the worthiness of the topic; rigour applied in the collection and analysis of data; the credibility of researchers and participants and its potential contribution to sports coaching and leadership. Transcriptions were shared with all the participants to confirm the accuracy of the data and discussion topics, a process that is frequently used in qualitative research to control the subjective bias of the researcher.⁴³ Subsequently no changes were made to those transcriptions following this process.

Results and discussion

In this section, the findings will be presented under the higher-order themes (Table 2) that were generated by the data analysis, in line with the aim and objectives of the study.

Table 2.

Higher order themes.

Higher order themes
Adaptive leadership
Clarity of vision
Role modelling
Authenticity
Communication within relationships
Shared leadership
Leadership groups

Adaptive leadership

When discussing personal leadership experiences the coaches revealed that differences in culture and the context of rugby in Hong Kong influenced their leadership approach, as suggested by Coach 3:

Hong Kong is unique in the fact that you have a mixture of Eastern and Western cultures all in one place, so you must approach leadership differently to what you’re used to.

When questioned further in how to approach the mixture of cultures from a coach leadership perspective, Coach 1 responded:

From my perspective, leadership is very experiential and contextual awareness becomes important. Hopefully, my ability to adapt to Hong Kong comes from selecting what I think are the best bits of leadership from all the places I’ve played and coached.

Experience and contextual awareness were important to the coaches and being adaptable to the context of Hong Kong was challenging as expressed by Coach 2, who has been coaching in Hong Kong for several years:

From my experience, the local population and their understanding of leadership is based on hierarchy. It appears that they are never encouraged to take the initiative which is important in rugby as coaches cannot do everything. I will add, the mindset to leadership is starting to shift.

Coaches agreed that although there were some challenges with players adopting a leadership role in the local population, the mindset has started to shift with players given the chance to express their opinions more. This was supported by the perceptions of leadership from player 3:

For Asian people, a lot of us growing up were obedient and were used to listening to someone in an authoritative way. However, in recent years it has changed, people have their own ideas and are not afraid to express them.

When asked on how this relates to leadership in rugby and why this has altered over time, player 3 suggested:

I think it's having a mix of cultures, expat players and coaches along with the local population. What the coaches do is create that one rugby identity to incorporate everyone. Also, expat coaches want to learn about the local culture, and they ask us to help them with that.

The findings add to the knowledge of the importance of coaches understanding the culture and context in relation to leadership. The findings suggest that for coaches to be effective leaders it is important to have cultural intelligence, a set of skills and traits that allow one to more effectively interact with novel cultural settings.⁴⁴ This will encourage coaches to be aware that culture and context play a significant role in how effective they are as a leader, particularly in rugby union. Additionally, despite the research suggesting that Asian cultures typically respond to an autocratic style of leadership,³² leadership in Asian rugby culture is starting to shift to a more democratic perspective. What this may mean for coaches is that their leadership styles may have to reside along a continuum between autocratic and democratic to have a better understanding of their context.

Clarity of vision

Several coaches suggested that one of the roles as a leader is to facilitate a shared vision for the organisation. This was expressed by Coach 1 who articulated that ‘a big part of the leader is having a clear grasp of the vision’. This was elaborated further by Coach 5 who explained her vision as ‘clarity of culture, clarity surrounding standards and behaviours and having a clarity around a game plan’. Additionally, from a players perspective clarity of a vision for the team is important for direction and performance. This was stressed by player 2 who said:

I think what we struggled with was heading into the competition in the summer without a clear vision of where we wanted the team to go. The coaches can use the players to gather information, but the vision of the team comes from them as leaders.

This was supported by player 1 as he expressed what that meant to him:

It's such a good point about a vision as it's something that binds us. We don't really have religion like some other rugby sevens teams, so having that clear vision for everyone gives us direction.

During FG 2, the coaches discussed the drawbacks of not having a clear vision as a leader but also having the ability to adapt some elements of that vision, if necessary, as pointed out by Coach 9:

I didn't know my team, but my mistake was I didn't come in with a clear vision of what I wanted which is something I should have done better. Players were confused and it provided no foundation to build upon.

Coach 9 elaborated further and alluded to his ability to adapt some parts of the vision as the context is always changing. This was in relation to his game plan:

It took me a while to realise I needed a clear vision for the team, what we wanted to achieve, how did we want to be viewed and a game plan. As I didn't know many players, I brought them in on the conversations, designed a clear vision and game plan but within weeks, two of my star players were injured for the season.

The importance of having a clear vision was essential not only relating it to the players but also to the performance directors, board members and general managers. This was stressed by Coach 6:

I’m head coach of the team, a position of leadership, so I must have a clear vision to show the players but also to the board, directors and managers. This means my leadership is multi-directional and dealing with the micro-politics can be difficult at times.

The findings provide supporting knowledge around coaches and players perceptions of a team vision and leadership. Having a vision for a team strongly relates to inspirational motivation and transformative leadership.²¹ The importance of having a team vision was evident in the coaches who did not create one and consequently caused confusion amongst the players and was detrimental to the coach–athlete relationship. As a leader, articulating a clear vision was found to be highly associated with improved coach–athlete relationships.⁴⁵ In addition to these findings articulating a clear vision to the players provides a starting point to design and implement team principles, game strategies and behaviours. This resonates with previous research conducted by Byrne and Cassidy²⁷ in which they suggested ‘a vision drives leadership and leadership drives performance’ (p. 328).

Role modelling

For the coaches in this study, once the vision of the team was outlined, the perception was that they would have to manage the standards, behaviours and values of the team. This was, on occasions, a challenging part of leadership as discussed by Coach 3:

My biggest frustration with players and people in the coaching environment is you have meetings to set standards and acceptable behaviours, which everyone is good at talking about but have difficulties putting that into action.

When questioned about possible solutions that he could provide as a leader, Coach 3 replied, ‘It's how I behave within the group. We must as leaders live our behaviours and become role models’. Additionally, Coach 11 added that it was important as a leader to provide clarity on certain behaviours a coach wants:

I suppose the big thing as a leader would be clarity of acceptable behaviours. For example, punctuality, dress code or other behaviours set. If there is no clarity or accountability on acceptable behaviours, players may take advantage

Being a good role model was important to the coaches to represent the behaviours and standards of the team. Setting these standards and behaviours was generally a collaborative act where players and coaches agreed on what was acceptable. This meant that when coaches were presented with tough decisions, they reverted to the standards, behaviours and values of the team to help in that decision-making process. This was evidenced by Coach 4:

When I’m posed with difficult decisions such as individual discipline issues and the behaviours don't correspond to what I and the team have deemed acceptable then it is something I can draw upon to make decisions.

This point was echoed by Coach 7 but from a different perspective in relation to team selection, ‘as a leader you’ve got to be prepared to make difficult decisions that might not be popular, but you believe in, and it represents your values as a coach’.

Coaches in this study displayed examples of idealised influence where coaches behave as a role model and gain followers’ (players) trust and respect. This behavioural dimension of transformative leadership meant that coaches endeavoured to lead by illustrating their values through actions to be a consistent role model. The reason for this was to set expectations for others to follow and when leaders display positive values, a contagion effect occurs and pro-social behaviours are amplified.⁴⁶ Although, as previously mentioned around their importance of clarity of vision, having clear acceptable behaviours was paramount for this role modelling to be effective. Albeit a subjective measure to a certain extent, having clear expectations around what the coaches perceived as acceptable behaviours was vital in the ability for others to role model and action the values. The findings show that several coaches display VBL,²⁵ becoming a mechanism when making difficult coaching decisions around discipline and team selection. Indeed, this illustrated that the coaches were self-aware in their decision making and possessed a reflective self-management technique which has been linked to VBL.²⁶

Authenticity

An important characteristic of an effective leader discussed by the coaches was authenticity. Different perspectives of authenticity were discussed, with Coach 2 reflecting on what it means to her, ‘from my point of view, authentic means being authentic to yourself and reflects your values as a leader’. Coach 1 then elaborated on this point regarding how this looks, as he explained:

Authenticity for me as a leader is you say something, and you follow that up with action. If not, it creates a distrust which people have the innate ability to sense.

However, this was questioned by Coach 7, as disagreements emerged from the conversations to how authentic the coaches can be particularly in relation to player feedback on performance:

Whilst I think we all try and be authentic and honest as a leader and coach to some level, I think in terms of performance feedback, you cannot treat everyone the same because people vary in the levels of honest feedback they can take. So, is that being authentic?

This generated more conversation regarding authenticity with Coach 1 replying to this by challenging the concept of authenticity:

Authenticity must be a balanced with empathy. As a leader, understanding what the players are going through. However, it does not mean sympathy and protecting players from the tough reality of performance sport.

Authentic coaching has been defined as a ‘direct, obvious and coherent link between beliefs and actions’⁴⁷ (p. 70). Authentic leaders are self-aware, transparent and consistent in their behaviours.⁴⁸ In coaching, authentic leadership has been shown to be positively related to enjoyment, commitment and increased trust of the coach.⁴⁹ The findings illustrate that coaches place importance on what they say and how that is represented in their actions. The coaches perceived that if the behaviours and actions did not correspond to what was said it can create a distrust between coach and athlete. Interestingly, Coach 7 questioned the degree to which coaches can be authentic and honest in certain coaching contexts, namely delivering performance feedback, ‘I can never really be as honest as I want to be for fear of losing that player and the relationship breaking down. This suggests that coaches must be aware that they may need to tailor their communication to the needs of the player and demands of the situation when providing performance feedback to players. From this, the findings suggest that coaches cannot be totally honest all the time when providing feedback particularly in instances of a player's negative performance. Consequently, as mentioned by Coach 1, there is a need to be empathetic when delivering feedback to the player with a balance of highlighting aspects that need improvement, understanding the players perspective but staying authentic by what the coach says is followed up with actions to improve the players future performance. To caveat authentic leadership, Northouse⁵⁰ has argued that the moral component has not been explained fully which suggests that further research is required particularly in a sporting environment.

Communication within relationships

There was general acceptance amongst the coaches and players that a key characteristic of leadership is the ability to foster relationships with people in the organisation they belong. Coach 5 described her experiences, ‘I found personally as a local person, being an effective leader is about relationships especially working in a multicultural environment’. By being presented with the challenging multicultural landscape of coaching in Hong Kong it placed even more importance upon building relationships especially in a leadership role. To build relationships with coaches and players, how they communicated with one another was a crucial component of fostering relationships as articulated by Coach 6:

In leadership, communication is a significant component of building relationships. It's not just talking, it's listening, the body language and the clarity in the meaning of what you say. What you say and do as a leader really matters.

There was strong agreement that communication was a major factor in building relationships and Coach 8 highlighted the complexity of communicating with players:

Communication is so complex, especially with players, for example, what we say, when we say it has a huge impact on them. The timing, understanding, type of person, your intention, in front of people or on their own. This adds lots of layers to communicating with the players to build a relationship.

Not only was communication important to the coaches in building relationships with the players, the players themselves also echoed this feeling as illustrated by player 5, ‘It's not a great feeling when a coach does not communicate with you. You start doubting yourself as a player’. Communication between coaches and players was seen as a significant part of relationship building from a leadership perspective but it also applied between players who were in leadership roles within the team. This was noticed by player 1 who has been captain for several years:

It comes with experience, but I feel to communicate effectively as a leader you also need to be flexible in how you approach it with different people and situations to get players to do certain things.

Building relationships between people in a rugby organisation was key to leadership and the coaches discussed that they often utilised their position as a leader to subtly influence and persuade others to achieve certain objectives. This was illustrated by Coach 4 who suggested he ‘finds a balance between using your influence and persuasion to get what you want by guiding the conversations with the players’. This was an interesting aspect of building relationships as a leader and Coach 6 admitted, ‘I pick the leaders in the team that mirror my values to try and get that wider buy in from the squad’. Coach 6 went on to admit to the group that ‘even though I do try and influence the players it is always team first for me’.

The findings from this study, relate with the suggestion that communication and language is a fundamental mediator for any temporal transmission process between people.⁵¹ In relation to leadership, the coaches demonstrated an awareness that the language used between coaches and players can be a way of creating meaning, which allows the social group to coordinate intersubjective actions.⁵² In a rugby environment, this can refer to a coach and players shared language during communication for understanding and clarity of meaning. Additionally, the absence of not engaging in personal forms of communication between coach and player can have detrimental effects as highlighted by player 5 in the study. It is rarely possible for a coach not to take part in the communication process because silence or the decision not to act can have significant influence on the relationship.⁵³ The findings also suggest that the coaches were consciously aware of the importance of their communication and the meaning behind what was said. This resonates with Jones et al.⁵² who suggest that it is often the ‘importance of the meaning attached to the words spoken as opposed to the words themselves’ (p.3). Research has suggested that language is the principal macro-scaffolding practice of coaches.⁵⁴ Scaffolding is considered a pedagogically focused, fluid framework shaped by context, whereby coaches’ actions are simultaneously directive and contingent upon emergent performance. This means that from a leadership perspective building and maintaining the relationships with the players has an additional performance effect. The coaches displayed a high degree of self-awareness surrounding leadership and the impact their communication had on relationships. This illustrated a level of care for their players which has been described as a vital construct within connections and relationships.⁵⁵ Noddings⁵⁶ described the meaning of care to involve a state of engrossment, a regard or inclination toward that something or someone. Despite the appearance of care for their athletes, the concepts of influence and persuasion suggest a contradictory notion. Coaches expressed influence and persuasive leadership behaviours to achieve what they themselves wanted as evidenced by Coach 4. Here, the findings indicate a certain level of power as omnipresent to the social interaction between coach and player.⁵⁵ Therefore, coaches as leaders must be sensitive to the various complex and multifaceted forms of power within their relationships.

Shared leadership

A fundamental method that coaches adopted to enhance leadership capabilities within their organisation was to distribute or share leadership responsibilities. This was highlighted by Coach 6 who shared his perspective on a shared leadership approach, ‘I am aware that I don't have all the answers as a leader and coach so I’m quite open to share that responsibility’. There was an awareness displayed by the coaches that sharing leadership responsibilities amongst their staff provided them with a voice and made them feel like they belonged to the organisation. This was articulated by Coach 3 who mentioned:

I think it gives them a voice and breaks down the hierarchy barrier to some degree. Asking questions of people to find out what they think is important to grow that leadership.

According to Coach 2, coaches who admit to not having all the answers and asking questions of people shows strength as a leader:

There's real power in showing an appropriate level of vulnerability as a leader. That means admitting when you don't know the answer, asking questions and being comfortable with sharing leadership.

The coaches not only asked questions for performance feedback amongst the players but felt that specific questions should be asked around leadership particularly during matches. This was explained by Coach 1:

Leadership is not coached enough, and it could be as simple as asking questions to players, post-match. For example, how did you get the best out of the group? How can I help you lead? What are the challenges?

In addition, to improve leadership coaching amongst the players, Coach 7 explained that he tries to mentor his players on leadership characteristics:

I try and mentor the players in relation to leadership, however, I just draw on my experience as a player and coach without any official training.

Following on from Jones and Standage⁵⁷ who first conceptualised a shared leadership approach. A shared leadership approach (also termed collective or distributed) can be described as a group level phenomenon in which the leadership role is shared amongst team members resulting in horizontal and upward influence.^58,59 When sharing leadership amongst team members and to get a wider degree of influence, coaches may select players who indicate competency and motivation to lead.⁶⁰ Additionally, the findings in relation to a shared leadership approach stem from the coaches possessing a high degree of self-awareness in that their knowledge and understanding of rugby and leadership may be limited. This requires them to share the leadership to share knowledge and learn from the players which can improve the coach–athlete relationship. This displays a degree of vulnerability in the coaches which when appropriately applied has been shown to create a strong degree of trust between coach and athlete.²⁰

Leadership groups

From a player's perspective, when coaches create a leadership group it provides them an opportunity to enhance their leadership characteristics as highlighted by player 4, ‘I think coaches creating leadership groups based on the potential to be a leader is beneficial’. Furthermore, although the players' leadership group is typically five people, each player has an individual relationship with the coach as discussed by player 3:

Despite being a leadership group, the coaches have a good relationship with each player individually to provide an opportunity to express our opinions.

This was further supported by player 4 who mentioned, ‘you feel like as a player your voice is heard, and the coaches empower us as players’. When asked to further elaborate on how the coaches empower them as players, player 4 suggested:

I think we’re pretty good at empowering players in Hong Kong, but I understand that the coaches do have the final say, however if a player feels empowered and the coach shows that he does listen then it will have a positive effect.

Player 4 described that sharing the leadership was a significant factor in providing the athletes with a voice, which can provide a sense of belonging and places the player at the centre of the programme.⁶¹ Although sharing the leadership throughout the organisation is perceived to create a sense of empowerment giving the players more ownership to make decisions. However, the results do provide evidence that the coaches still possess overall control on most decisions. This closely relates to the metaphor of ‘orchestration’.⁶² This suggests coaches steer as opposed to control a dynamic iterative process requiring much behind the scenes string pulling towards desired objectives and in this case a shared leadership approach.

Despite Jones and Standage's⁶³ conceptualisation of empowerment in shared leadership as an illusionary act, the difference here lies in the awareness of the players to this, and the indifference experienced if it has positive intentions. The findings show that although not in a formal capacity mentoring players regarding leadership behaviours was important. Mentoring has generally been considered a dynamic and reciprocal relationship between a mentor (advanced knowledge and experience) and a protégé (a mentee who is seeking new knowledge and experience) to enhance overall development.⁶⁴ Exploring more informal and formal methods of leadership training appears to be underutilised but critical if coaches adopt a shared leadership approach within their organisation.

Conclusion

The aim of this study was to investigate Hong Kong rugby coaches and players’ perception of leadership. This was achieved through: (1) the central importance of leadership in rugby and (2) identifying seven characteristics of leadership in an organisation or team. Interestingly, results suggest that for leadership to be effective, coaches must possess a socio-cultural understanding of their context, have a clear vision for their team and have a principle of transformational and VBL to help make decisions. These are important findings considering the need for contextual understanding within coaching and provide a framework for coach learning in a developing rugby union landscape. Given the growth of the game, and the quest to become ‘truly global’ it could be argued that these results provide a starting point for coaches within the game as they begin to grow their understanding of their role as a leader. Additionally, it was interesting to note the theme of the coach as a role model, and the need to demonstrate authentic leadership to be able to build and maintain relationships with the people in their organisation. Results suggest this was only possible through effective communication. The concept of shared leadership has been extolled fairly heavily within rugby union, and from a unique perspective that interrogated both players and coaches, results suggest that it is an effective method that can be adopted by coaches to enhance leadership within this context.

When considering the limitations of this study, three online Zoom FGs could be argued to not provide enough in-depth conversations surrounding leadership, lacking theoretical and practical interventions. Therefore, future studies can introduce Action Research as a paradigm to generate more practice-based leadership knowledge in rugby union.⁶⁵ Despite its limitations, this study has provided empirical evidence generating new context-specific insight into coaches and players’ experiences of leadership in rugby union.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Jevon Groves

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