Olympic swimmers’ perspectives on how they want to be led

Abstract

This study examines Olympic swimmers’ leadership preferences within high performance sport environments, addressing a notable gap in literature, as leadership research has predominantly focused on team sports contexts. Recent public and institutional scrutiny of coaching behaviours, safeguarding failures, and athlete welfare within elite swimming further highlight the importance of understanding athletes’ perspectives on leadership. Employing semi structured interviews with 15 Olympic swimmers and thematic analysis guided by Chelladurai's Multidimensional Model of Leadership, the research identified four central themes: (1) the critical role of trust and psychological safety within coach-athlete relationships; (2) athletes’ preference for collaborative leadership styles over autocratic approaches; (3) the significance of cohesive team cultures and effective interdisciplinary collaboration; and (4) the necessity for comprehensive feedback that clearly communicates the rationale behind training methods. The findings reveal that Olympic swimmers value emotionally intelligent and adaptable leadership, sensitive to their developmental stages and personal experiences. These insights contribute to ongoing debates on effective leadership practices within elite sport by foregrounding athletes’ lived experiences of leadership within Olympic swimming. Collectively, these themes offer an interpretive account of how Olympic swimmers make sense of leadership through relational, emotional, and cognitive experiences, highlighting aspects of leadership that athletes themselves consider central within contemporary high-performance swimming environments. Practically, coach education should embed clear rationale-sharing and emotionally intelligent, collaborative practices to protect athlete welfare while sustaining performance. Carrying out this study in the period surrounding Paris 2024 situates these preferences within contemporary high-performance systems.

Introduction

The importance of recalibrating leadership in swimming is underscored by documented welfare failures and toxic climates within elite sport.^1–3 Investigations have highlighted authoritarian coaching behaviours, emotional neglect, and psychologically unsafe training cultures; a widely reported BBC Panorama investigation detailed the experiences of an Olympic champion left ‘broken’, illustrating systemic safeguarding weaknesses within elite swimming programmes. ³ Such evidence strengthens calls for leadership that prioritises psychological safety, emotional intelligence, and ethical responsibility alongside results. ⁴ A coach's own sustainability is implicated here: leadership approaches that fit athletes’ preferences may also reduce burnout risk and ethical strain among coaches.^5,6

Elite athletes operate in environments that demand physical excellence, psychological resilience, and leadership capable of sustaining both performance and well-being. ⁷ Leadership in these settings increasingly exceeds the influence of a single head coach and is enacted through integrated, multidisciplinary systems (physiology, psychology, nutrition, and strength and conditioning) whose alignment shapes athlete development and competitive outcomes.^8,9

Despite this evolution, the leadership literature remains weighted toward team sports and youth or developmental contexts, leaving the needs of elite individual-sport athletes, such as Olympic swimmers, comparatively under-examined.^10,11

Olympic swimming is a distinctive context: training typically exceeds 23 hours per week across multiple daily sessions to achieve marginal gains, creating sustained load and complex periodisation demands. ¹² These programmes are embedded in hierarchical high-performance systems led by directors and head coaches who must coordinate specialist expertise while managing cohesion, communication, and athlete welfare.^13,14 The interpersonal demands on leaders are therefore substantial, and poorly calibrated practices can compromise both psychological safety and performance. ¹⁵

To examine the leadership that Olympic swimmers actually want, this study employs Chelladurai's Multidimensional Model of Leadership (MML) (alignment of required, actual, and preferred leader behaviours) as an organising lens for athletes’ lived experiences. ¹⁶ Alignment across these dimensions is associated with motivation, satisfaction, and performance, providing a theoretically grounded way to surface what ‘good leadership’ means to swimmers themselves.^17,18 The timing (conducted in the immediate year of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games) offers contemporary relevance, a period when athletes can face reduced competitive structure and heightened identity and mental-health risk.^5,19

Leadership simultaneously shapes performance and well-being, and athletes’ experiences depend on sport-specific demands and local interpersonal dynamics.^6,20–22 Even in individual sports, daily work is group-based, requiring leadership that balances collective training with individual goals. ²³ Within this terrain, the MML provides analytical clarity on ‘preferred behaviour’, but the relational quality of leadership is equally decisive. Horn emphasises coaching effectiveness as contingent on understanding athletes’ needs, while autonomy-supportive approaches link to adaptive motivation in youth and collegiate samples.^24,25 Jowett's 3+1 Cs model (closeness, commitment, complementarity, and co-orientation) shows how mutual respect and shared purpose scaffold effective climates, positioning relationship quality as a core mechanism through which leadership is enacted.^26,27

Evidence across contexts points to the benefits of transformational leadership and adaptive coach behaviour. McGuckin et al. show coaches shift between transformational (motivational, empathetic) and transactional (instruction-focused) behaviours to meet athletes’ developmental needs and contextual demands.⁶ Erikstad et al. demonstrate that structured coach development can enhance transformational coaching and athlete satisfaction. ²⁸ Collectively, these studies situate effective leadership as athlete-centred and flexible rather than fixed.^6,21,29

Transformational leadership (vision, role-modelling, individualised consideration, and emotional intelligence) is frequently associated with resilience and performance under pressure.^{21,22,28,30,31} Conversely, autocratic styles undermine the coach–athlete relationship, motivation, and satisfaction. ²¹ These findings resonate with autonomy-supportive coaching, where clear rationales and shared decision-making help internalise training demands and sustain effort. ²⁵

In swimming, effective leadership appears to integrate directive clarity with athlete input. ³² Collegiate studies indicate hybrid approaches, for example; structured programming plus opportunities for autonomy, which aligns with swimmers’ needs in socially embedded but individually contested performance environments.^32,33 This balance maps onto adaptive leadership principles (McGuckin) and the development of transformational practice (Erikstad).^6,28 Team culture is influential even for individual events: leaders who cultivate a shared identity elevate confidence and outcomes, indicating that the social architecture around the swimmer matters. ³¹

A meta-analytic pattern suggests female athletes often benefit more psychologically from transformational leadership, while males may show stronger preferences for directive feedback. ²² Institutional guidance also aligns with the value of gender-sensitive coaching. ³⁴ Yet context matters: autonomy support, trust, and high-quality relationships consistently predict positive outcomes across groups, warning against reductive prescriptions.^20–23,35 The present study therefore treats gender as a potential moderator rather than a determinant, focusing on swimmers’ preferences in situ.

Elite environments are relational ecosystems in which leadership is distributed across support staff as well as the head coach. Cohesive, cross-disciplinary coordination (physio, S&C, nutrition, psychology) reduces ambiguity, supports confidence, and enhances preparation quality. This aligns with integrated leadership teams and medal-winning environments, ³⁶ and with work on specialist coaching integration and sport-science coordination in elite clubs.^9,14,37 Poor cross-departmental communication increases stress and reduces efficacy, including for support staff themselves. ¹⁵ In short, athletes experience leadership not only dyadically but as the emergent property of a well-orchestrated system.

A consistent thread across studies is the importance of rationale-sharing: when athletes understand the purpose behind tasks, for example; how today's set fits periodisation, or why intensity and pacing matter, they are more engaged and persistent. ¹⁷ This extends the MML's preferred-behaviour logic by emphasising cognitive transparency as a distinct leadership demand: clear explanations that enable co-ownership and internalisation of training goals. Evidence linking autonomy support and explicit rationale to motivation, satisfaction, and reduced burnout strengthens this claim.^6,21,25,35 Clarity is also a protective factor within systems where mental-health risks are heightened and early intervention is advocated.^4,19,29,38

Against this backdrop (where documented welfare concerns in swimming,^1–3 established benefits of transformational and autonomy-supportive coaching,^21,25,28,30 and growing recognition of distributed leadership in integrated teams^8,9,36), this study investigates how Olympic swimmers want to be led. Guided by the MML, ¹⁶ it centres athletes’ lived experiences to highlight preferred behaviours and relational processes. By doing so, it addresses under-representation of elite individual-sport contexts,^10,11 foregrounds leadership as both behavioural and relational (Jowett; Cook et al.),^26,27 and highlights aspects of leadership experience that are less visible within existing frameworks, particularly around emotional responsiveness and the communication of purpose.

Additionally, the study's context around Paris 2024 provides a contemporary lens on leadership demands during periods of elevated psychological vulnerability and identity flux in elite sport.^5,19 The analysis therefore contributes an athlete-centred account of effective leadership in Olympic swimming while offering practice-relevant implications for coach education and high-performance system design.^9,14,15,36

Finally, guided by an interpretivist paradigm, this study does not seek to test or validate leadership models but to explore how Olympic swimmers construct meaning around leadership within their lived high-performance contexts. Leadership is therefore examined not as a fixed set of behaviours, but as a relational and socially situated process shaped by athletes’ emotional, cognitive, and interpersonal experiences. This positioning foregrounds swimmers’ subjective interpretations of leadership and aligns with the study's aim to understand what leadership means to athletes within contemporary Olympic swimming environments.

Methodology

This study utilised a qualitative research design to explore the leadership preferences of Olympic swimmers (referred to as ‘athletes’), situated within an interpretivist paradigm to capture the depth of athletes’ lived experiences. ³⁹ The interpretivist paradigm is underpinned by a constructivist ontology, which assumes that reality is socially produced through human interaction, and a subjectivist epistemology, which recognises that knowledge is co-constructed between researcher and participant. Rather than comparing groups or seeking universal truths, interpretivist research aims to explore the shared meanings individuals ascribe to their experiences within specific contexts. ⁴⁰ This philosophical stance aligns with the study's aim to explore swimmers’ subjective understandings of leadership within elite sport environments, privileging depth, context, and meaning over measurement or prediction. Such an approach was therefore essential for uncovering the shared meanings and relational dynamics that shape athletes’ experiences of leadership in Olympic swimming.

Participants and sampling

Participants comprised 15 Olympic swimmers (11 male, 4 female) from four European countries (UK, Ireland, Greece, and Poland), purposively sampled to ensure direct experience in elite Olympic swimming environments. To be eligible, participants had to be aged 18 years or older and have competed in at least one Olympic Games within the previous eight years, ensuring recency of experience and alignment with contemporary leadership and performance environments. This time frame captured athletes from the past two Olympic cycles, reflecting current trends in high-performance sport and organisational culture. This criteria ensured participants possessed relevant, high-level leadership experiences within contemporary elite swimming contexts. While this broad geographic inclusion enhanced the representativeness of the sample, it also introduced potential variability in leadership preferences arising from cultural and gender differences. Although gender representation was uneven, all athletes were included in thematic analysis, and comparisons between groups were explored where feasible. Demographic details have been omitted to preserve the anonymity of the athletes who participated in the study.

Participants were recruited through elite training centres, universities with high-performance swimming programmes, and direct athlete networks. This purposive sampling strategy ensured access to a diverse yet contextually relevant population while prioritising the reduction of potential bias throughout the recruitment and data collection process. Recruitment occurred independently of coaches and sporting organisations to mitigate social desirability and power-dynamic influences on participant responses. All interviews were conducted confidentially, with assurances of anonymity and collective reporting to encourage open and authentic reflection. The interviewer maintained reflexive awareness, adopting a neutral stance and employing open-ended prompts to avoid leading participants toward particular interpretations of leadership. These procedures were designed to enhance the credibility, trustworthiness, and transferability of the findings within elite swimming contexts.

Researcher positionality

The lead researcher is an Olympic swimmer with lived experience of elite high-performance swimming environments. This insider positionality supported contextual sensitivity and rapport with participants during data collection. In line with an interpretivist approach, awareness of this positionality informed the research process, with reflexive strategies employed during analysis to ensure interpretations remained grounded in participants’ accounts rather than the researcher's own experiences.

Data collection

Data collection involved 15 semi-structured interviews (one per participant), conducted either in person at elite training centres (n = 7) or online via video call (n = 8) to accommodate participants’ training schedules. Interviews ranged in length between 39 and 58 minutes (average duration approximately 52 minutes), providing sufficient depth while allowing flexibility for athletes to reflect on their leadership experiences within their off-season schedules. ⁴¹ The interview guide was structured around predetermined topics informed by existing literature, including leadership style preferences, communication practices (both verbal and non-verbal), decision-making processes, and athlete well-being. Interviews were conducted over a three-month period, aligning with athletes’ training schedules to reduce interference with recovery and training demands. ⁴² All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim to ensure data accuracy and depth of analysis.

Ethical considerations

Ethical approval was obtained from Loughborough University's Ethics Committee prior to data collection. Ethical procedures aligned with the British Psychological Society's (BPS) Code of Ethics and Conduct. ⁴³

Data analysis

Data was analysed following Braun and Clarke's six-phase framework for reflexive thematic analysis. ⁴⁴ This approach, consistent with the interpretivist paradigm, provided both flexibility and rigour in systematically interpreting complex athlete narratives. Initial coding was conducted inductively, identifying patterns and themes that emerged directly from participants’ accounts to capture the meanings they ascribed to their experiences.

In line with the interpretivist positioning of this study, the aim was not to produce generalisable findings but to develop a contextually grounded and trustworthy interpretation of Olympic swimmers’ lived experiences. Accordingly, the analytic process prioritised depth, reflexivity, and transparency over replication or prediction. To enhance trustworthiness and minimise potential researcher bias, reflexive journaling was consistently employed throughout data collection and analysis, documenting analytical decisions, assumptions, and reflections. ³⁹ Additionally, a second researcher independently reviewed a subset of transcripts and coding decisions, supporting interpretive consistency and reinforcing the credibility of the identified themes. Consistent with this interpretivist inquiry, the analysis prioritised understanding how swimmers make sense of leadership within their lived high-performance contexts, rather than evaluating or measuring the effectiveness of specific leadership behaviours.

Findings

Thematic analysis of the semi-structured interviews with athletes revealed four primary themes regarding leadership preferences: (1) coach-athlete relationship and communication; (2) collaborative rather than autocratic leadership; (3) team culture and cross-disciplinary collaboration; and (4) the importance of feedback and understanding the rationale underpinning training approaches.

Coach-athlete relationship and communication

Athletes consistently emphasised the centrality of the coach-athlete relationship as foundational to their experience of effective leadership. Across the full sample, the coach-athlete relationship was articulated as significantly more than a transactional or instructional dynamic; it was described as a crucial emotional and psychological context in which leadership was either reinforced or compromised. In addition, six participants (P3, P4, P6, P10, P11, P15) expressed that mutual respect, shared understanding, honest and constructive feedback, and emotional intelligence were the key dimensions shaping effective leadership.

Athletes frequently highlighted that the quality of interpersonal communication, including tone, responsiveness, empathy, and timing, directly influenced their sense of trust, motivation, and overall psychological safety. One athlete illustrated the foundational importance of mutual respect clearly:

We had a lot of respect for each other, we believed in each other – which I think was quite vital for our coach-athlete relationship. (P.3)

This view was echoed widely across participants. P4 explained that:

If there's no understanding with the coach … then everything goes after that. (P.4)

Similarly, P15 described how emotional connection with a coach supported psychological balance, stating:

He helps me stay emotionally level in such an up-and-down sport. (P.15)

Athletes also underscored the importance of emotional awareness and responsiveness from coaches, particularly during challenging moments. Several described that in situations of high emotional or physical stress, simple gestures of empathy from coaches significantly impacted their ability to cope effectively and maintain psychological resilience. As one athlete explained:

I’ve had days where I just needed him to say, ‘You’re not quite yourself today … what's up?’ That check-in can be the difference between falling apart or getting through the session. (P.6)

This sentiment was echoed by another athlete, who further emphasised the value of intuitive emotional support provided by coaches:

He could always tell when I wasn't feeling right and knew how to support me. (P.10)

However, four athletes reflected on moments of poor or inconsistent communication, noting the effect this had on their preparation and performance. One swimmer expressed:

Poor and slow communication … scrambling around a month before going on camp – booking things … it's quite stressful and affects my performance. (P.11)

These reflections illustrate how effective leadership within elite swimming environments is experienced as fundamentally relational, involving an ongoing exchange of emotional support and trust rather than merely directive instruction. Athletes repeatedly suggested that such relational qualities, particularly emotional intelligence and genuine empathy from coaches, strongly enhanced their training engagement, motivation, and overall psychological well-being.

Furthermore, athletes described a noticeable shift in their expectations and engagement with different leadership styles as their careers progressed. They expressed becoming significantly more perceptive and discerning about the types of coaching relationships they valued as they gained experience. Early career athletes often reported a tendency to accept authority without question, whereas more experienced swimmers expressed a preference for greater transparency, autonomy, and justification behind coaching decisions. As one athlete articulated:

At the beginning of my career, I probably wouldn't have said anything. I just did what I was told. But now I want to know why we’re doing something – what the purpose is. (P.9)

This evolution of self-awareness meant athletes placed increasing value on leadership styles that incorporated clear and intentional communication. For instance, another athlete connected emotional leadership explicitly to trust.

You can be grilled a little bit, but if it gets to the point where they don't believe you’re as committed as you are, that's when I lose faith. (P.4)

Such comments reflect athletes’ heightened expectations for nuanced and emotionally intelligent interactions as their competitive experiences accumulate. Athletes described their ideal leadership relationships as dynamic, evolving alongside their own maturity, self-awareness, and career stage.

Conversely, athletes frequently reflected on experiences with emotionally distant or overly critical coaches, highlighting how such leadership styles negatively impacted their motivation and performance. A recurring theme across these accounts was the detrimental impact of interactions lacking genuine human connection or emotional understanding. One athlete described such an experience bluntly:

Back with (coach) there was no substance behind our relationship – it was like speaking with a bot sometimes. (P.1)

This contrasts starkly with positive experiences reported by athletes who had coaches exhibiting high levels of emotional intelligence, approachability, and a collaborative orientation. For instance, the same athlete offered a comparison with a subsequent, positive relationship:

My relationship with [new coach] was perfect; he gave me so much more say and understood me in and outside of the pool. (P.1)

Such contrasts highlight that athlete perceptions of effective leadership hinge significantly on coaches’ capacities to foster emotionally supportive relationships that transcend purely transactional interactions.

Overall, these findings illustrate clearly that within Olympic swimming contexts, effective leadership is defined not merely by instructional competency but by the consistent demonstration of emotional awareness, psychological understanding, and authentic care. The coach-athlete relationship thus emerges as a critical psychological space, essential to both athlete welfare and sustained high performance.

Collaboration over control: rejecting the autocratic model

A clear consensus emerged among athletes rejecting autocratic coaching practices in favour of leadership approaches that emphasised collaboration, autonomy, and meaningful dialogue. Across seven interviews (P4, P6, P8, P9, P11, P13, P14), participants strongly articulated a desire for shared decision-making and greater involvement in shaping their training experiences. Such involvement was frequently described as critical, particularly as athletes advanced in their careers, gained experience, and became increasingly aware of their individual performance needs.

Six athletes clearly distinguished between being directed and being overly controlled, emphasising the importance of having input and a sense of personal agency within the training environment. For instance, one athlete succinctly captured the broader sentiment:

I want to be led, not micromanaged. There's a big difference. (P.4)

This distinction between supportive leadership and overly prescriptive or authoritarian methods was echoed by other athletes, who identified unilateral decision-making as detrimental to their motivation and emotional engagement. P4, for instance, elaborated further:

I don't want to be told, ‘This is what you’re doing, get on with it’ … I work better when we’re both working towards something together. (P.4)

Similarly, P8 reflected on the transition from a controlling environment to one that valued collaboration and athlete input:

Before, I was just told what to do – I didn't have much say. When I got to [new coach], it became more about what training works for me. (P.8)

Athletes frequently described experiences of disengagement when coaches did not seek or value their input, resulting in feelings of reduced investment and emotional withdrawal from training programmes. As another athlete reflected:

When there's no conversation, just instructions, it's easy to go into autopilot. You stop caring as much. (P.7)

Five athletes offered critical reflections on past experiences with overly controlling coaches whose prescriptive and inflexible styles limited athlete agency. Athletes recounted how coaches who imposed training plans without dialogue created environments that negatively impacted their psychological engagement and subsequent performance. One athlete articulated this vividly:

If you’re trusted with your own programme, you’re going to take ownership of it. But if it's forced on you, you start to switch off. (P.9)

Similar experiences were shared by another athlete, who described the significant negative impact of rigid coaching on both morale and competitive performance:

There's a difference between structure and control. I’ve had both – too much control killed the vibe and my performance. (P.11)

By contrast, leadership approaches characterised by openness to dialogue, adaptability, and responsiveness were consistently praised for fostering higher levels of trust, motivation, and psychological investment among athletes. Athletes described how collaborative leadership practices created opportunities for meaningful dialogue, increasing their sense of ownership over their training programmes and competitive objectives. For example, one athlete highlighted the critical importance of adaptability and active listening:

A good coach listens and adjusts. They don't always have to change things but just knowing they’re open makes a massive difference. (P.14)

This perception was reinforced by another athlete, who appreciated leadership that prioritised two-way communication rather than a hierarchical dynamic:

The best coaches I’ve had are the ones who actually listened – where it was a conversation, not a lecture. (P.2)

These athletes’ narratives clearly underscore that effective leadership within elite swimming is perceived not merely as directive instruction but as a collaborative and relational partnership. Athletes expressed that the best coaching relationships were built on mutual respect, trust, and the genuine incorporation of athlete perspectives, particularly around key training decisions and season planning. Such collaboration was consistently identified as fostering higher athlete satisfaction and engagement, thereby enhancing both short-term performance outcomes and long-term athlete welfare.

Taken together, these findings reveal a clear preference among athletes for coaching approaches that deliberately avoid autocratic practices. Instead, athletes consistently articulated the necessity of leadership that recognises them as active contributors to their training environment, capable of meaningful engagement and informed input. The strong rejection of overly controlling methods, combined with explicit support for adaptive and responsive leadership, demonstrates a high level of thematic convergence and data saturation across participants, perhaps signalling a critical shift in elite athlete expectations towards relational, autonomy-supportive leadership in Olympic swimming.

Team culture and cross-disciplinary collaboration

Athletes strongly valued cohesive and inclusive team cultures, underpinned by effective interdisciplinary collaboration among support staff, including physiotherapists, strength and conditioning coaches, nutritionists, and psychologists, as essential for their optimal performance and psychological well-being. Across 14 interviews, athletes described that leadership extended beyond the head coach to encompass the collective responsibility of all support staff in shaping the overall training environment. The integration and alignment of various specialist roles emerged as central to creating environments in which athletes felt fully supported and psychologically secure, enhancing their ability to concentrate effectively on their training and competition goals.

Athletes consistently reported that clear, consistent communication and alignment across these interdisciplinary teams significantly influenced their confidence, motivation, and performance outcomes. One athlete articulated this collective dimension of leadership succinctly:

It's not just about the coach; it's the whole team. When everyone's aligned, you feel it. You’re not being pulled in different directions. (P.15)

This sentiment was echoed by eight athletes who described experiences of effective coordination among different support roles. Such experiences were highlighted as particularly impactful because they contributed to athletes feeling understood, cared for, and emotionally supported by the entire performance system rather than by any single individual. As one athlete clearly noted:

Some of the best setups I’ve been in had proper communication across departments. You’d do a physio session, and the S&C coach would already know what was said. You don't have to repeat your story ten times. They already know what you’re dealing with. That shows me they care, and it helps me focus on swimming. (P.5)

Athletes described how this sense of integration fostered both trust and stability. P13, for instance, noted that:

The coach's energy is important, but the atmosphere created by the team is even more so. (P.13)

Conversely, athletes described how breakdowns in communication or departmental isolation, where messages were inconsistent or conflicting, could exacerbate anxiety, reduce confidence, and disrupt preparation. One athlete vividly described this disruption:

If one part of the system is off, like, say, S&C doesn't know what the coach wants, it affects your confidence. But when everyone is talking, it just clicks. (P.15)

Others (P7, P11) shared similar reflections, with P7 contrasting environments where communication was fragmented with those that were integrated and cooperative:

In [previous programme], my swim coach didn't believe in gym training. Here, [coach] and [S&C coach] worked well together. (P.7)

These reflections emphasise that high-performance swimming environments are fundamentally relational ecosystems where clear communication, alignment, and integration among support roles critically shape athletes’ experiences. The majority of athletes expressed appreciation for support staff who demonstrated a proactive approach to collaboration and communication, thereby creating environments in which athletes felt stable, secure, and emotionally supported.

Additionally, athletes emphasised the broader cultural dimension of their training environments, identifying that the overall atmosphere and culture were actively shaped by the collective attitudes and interactions of all staff members rather than solely by the head coach's behaviour or directives. Athletes valued training cultures that balanced professionalism with empathy and interpersonal warmth, articulating clearly that such cultures were conducive to sustained performance and emotional health. One athlete captured this dynamic:

We’re at our best when the vibe is open and professional, but still human. That culture comes from everyone, not just the head coach. (P.11)

Athletes elaborated that these positive cultural dynamics were evident through consistent attitudes, behaviours, and interactions from all staff, which fostered an environment of mutual respect, trust, and open communication. For instance, one athlete explained the significance of culture as an atmospheric and palpable feature of their training setting:

It's a tone that gets set. You walk in and you know what kind of place it is. And when people are working together, you feel that energy. (P.11)

Taken together, these findings indicate that athletes perceive effective leadership in elite swimming contexts as inherently collaborative, extending beyond individual coaching relationships to encompass the entire interdisciplinary support network. Cohesive team culture, underpinned by clear interdisciplinary communication and genuine emotional investment from all team members, was repeatedly identified as essential for both immediate competitive success and long-term athlete well-being. The consistency of these reflections across participants demonstrates strong thematic convergence and data saturation, emphasising the importance of cultivating leadership practices that recognise the athlete's experience as embedded within broader organisational and relational contexts.

Feedback and the need for understanding the ‘why’ behind training approaches

A prominent theme across participant interviews was athletes’ consistent and strongly expressed desire to understand the rationale behind coaching decisions. This view was shared by seven participants, demonstrating clear consensus across the sample. While trust in coaches’ expertise and judgement was generally acknowledged, athletes repeatedly highlighted the necessity of clearly communicated explanations regarding daily training sets and broader periodisation strategies. Such transparency was frequently identified as critical for sustaining their psychological engagement, intrinsic motivation, and trust in the training process.

Athletes emphasised that having a clear understanding of the underlying purpose behind training activities significantly enhanced their commitment and willingness to engage fully in challenging or unfamiliar training sessions. One athlete explicitly captured this sentiment:

When a coach explains the purpose behind something, I commit to it way more, even if it's hard. (P.4)

Other athletes expressed similar views, linking clarity and explanation directly to their belief in the programme. As P8 described:

For me, I wanted to understand why I was swimming at this pace, for example, rather than another pace. (P.8)

This was reinforced by others, including P1 and P7, who noted the motivational effect of understanding the science or logic underpinning training tasks. P1 stated:

I had to know why I was doing something – why this distance, why this intensity, why this lift. (P.1)

P7 added:

I don't need to know everything, but I need to know enough to believe in it. (P.7)

This statement illustrates how clarity about the rationale behind training decisions does not require exhaustive detail, but rather sufficient insight for athletes to feel confident in their coaches’ methods. Athletes consistently identified coaches who proactively communicated the intention behind training sets as fostering enhanced psychological engagement, enabling them to approach sessions with greater intentionality and focus.

This effect was described succinctly by another athlete:

The best coaches are the ones who tell you what the set's about. It just helps you focus properly. (P.14)

Others echoed this need for transparency, with P12 commenting:

I like blunt honesty – just not too blunt. I respond well when someone tells me directly what's wrong. (P.12)

Conversely, athletes consistently highlighted that an absence of clarity or rationale could rapidly lead to disengagement and reduced effort. Athletes described scenarios where lack of understanding or misalignment between training tasks and personal performance goals created confusion, frustration, and ultimately diminished psychological investment in their training. As one athlete vividly illustrated:

When you don't know what the training's for, it just becomes reps. You start doing the work but disengage. (P.9)

Another athlete similarly reflected on experiences of frustration and confusion when training objectives were unclear or inadequately communicated:

There were phases where I’d be like, ‘How does this fit with what we’re trying to do?’ and no one could answer that. (P.1)

These experiences underline the significant negative consequences of poorly articulated training purposes, suggesting that uncertainty or ambiguity regarding training rationale can erode athlete trust and motivation, ultimately affecting performance and well-being.

Importantly, athletes also noted the value of purposeful, timely communication within individual training sessions. Across multiple accounts (P3, P4, P8), brief, targeted explanations were credited with transforming engagement levels and sharpening focus. For instance, one athlete described how even brief instructions provided at the outset of training could significantly enhance their psychological readiness and motivation:

Even just a quick word before beginning the set, ‘we’re working on race pace,’ and I’m tuned in. I care about what and why I’m doing this. (P.3)

These findings indicate that meaningful, purposeful feedback delivered at appropriate times throughout training not only sustains engagement but also directly enhances athletes’ intrinsic motivation and ability to focus effectively on session goals.

Collectively, these insights strongly suggest that clear, transparent, and purposeful communication of the rationale behind training methodologies and session goals is a foundational element of effective leadership within elite swimming contexts. Athletes’ strong desire for understanding training purposes highlights a critical aspect of coaching effectiveness, ensuring athletes can meaningfully connect training tasks with broader performance objectives. The consistency of these reflections across participants demonstrates strong thematic convergence and data saturation, confirming that swimmers’ motivation and trust are closely tied to the clarity and timing of feedback provided by coaches. By consistently providing rationale-driven feedback, coaches can significantly enhance athlete trust, motivation, psychological engagement, and ultimately, performance outcomes.

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to explore the leadership preferences of Olympic swimmers, a context largely underrepresented in existing leadership research. In addressing this gap, the findings provide valuable insights into how leadership practices influence athlete experiences, both psychologically and performance-wise, in elite swimming environments. The discussion critically engages with current literature, especially Chelladurai's MML. ¹⁶ However, consistent with the study's interpretivist positioning, the analysis does not seek to validate existing frameworks but to interpret how athletes themselves construct meaning around leadership in their lived contexts. This interpretive lens places emphasis on how relationships, emotions, and shared understanding shape athletes’ perceptions of effective leadership.

Coach-athlete relationships, communication, and emotional engagement

The importance athletes placed on trust, respect, and emotional intelligence in coach-athlete interactions aligns with existing literature highlighting psychological safety as foundational in elite sport environments.^31,36 However, this study extends previous findings by emphasising the specific consequences of emotional absence in coaching relationships. Athletes in this study consistently described emotional detachment after poor performances as psychologically harmful, reinforcing Kavussanu et al.'s recent work on authentic leadership, which positions emotional availability and transparency as essential to athlete mental wellbeing. ²⁰

While the MML effectively captures the importance of aligning preferred and actual leadership behaviours, it may understate the depth of emotional responsiveness required in contexts of heightened vulnerability – common in elite swimming due to the solitary nature of performance. Athletes like P.6 highlighted how simple expressions of emotional availability (‘You’re not quite yourself today … what's up?’) could significantly mitigate psychological distress following setbacks. From an interpretivist perspective, these reflections illuminate how athletes make sense of leadership through felt experiences of empathy and recognition, rather than abstract behavioural dimensions. This resonates with Jowett's ²⁷ 3+1 Cs model, in which closeness, commitment, and complementarity are co-constructed through reciprocal understanding. The findings suggest that swimmers’ perceptions of effective leadership are grounded in relational meaning-making and emotional understanding.

Interestingly, these findings challenge previous assumptions about gendered leadership preferences, as articulated by Kim and Cruz, who found male athletes primarily valued directive leadership approaches. ²² Contrary to this, male swimmers in this study explicitly rejected autocratic leadership, emphasising instead a preference for authentic emotional connections and collaborative interactions. This divergence demonstrates the contextual and relational construction of leadership meaning among athletes, a central feature of interpretivist inquiry, and highlights how personal histories and team environments influence what leadership ‘feels like’ to the athlete.

Such findings underscore how athletes experienced flexible leadership approaches as more responsive to their emotional and developmental needs, and as transcending simplistic gender distinctions, echoing the adaptability emphasised by McGuckin et al., who advocated for leadership that dynamically responds to athletes’ evolving emotional and developmental needs. ⁶ While the sample included more male than female participants, the views expressed by female swimmers were largely consistent with those of their male counterparts and there was no strong divergence in leadership preferences along gender lines within this sample. This convergence of meaning suggests that in high-performance swimming, leadership is experienced less as a function of gender and more as a reflection of shared psychological needs, interpersonal trust, and social understanding.

Collaborative leadership and rejecting autocratic models

A further key finding was athletes’ strong preference for collaborative rather than autocratic leadership styles. Athletes emphasised the significance of having input in training decisions, highlighting that a sense of ownership fostered greater motivation and performance commitment. Such findings corroborate research by Fletcher and Arnold ³⁶ which identified transparency and collaboration as crucial factors in athletes’ performance outcomes. Moreover, the present findings extend existing literature by illustrating how the absence of collaborative dialogue, especially under rigid, autocratic leadership, risks athlete disengagement and performance deterioration.

From an interpretivist standpoint, these narratives reveal how athletes construct meaning around leadership as a shared process – one characterised by trust, autonomy, and psychological safety. The rejection of control-oriented approaches reflects a broader shift in how elite athletes understand leadership, increasingly viewing it as co-created rather than imposed.

Athletes’ rejection of autocratic coaching and clear preference for adaptive leadership resonates with McGuckin et al.'s findings, ⁶ which suggest that effective sport leadership is inherently flexible and responsive. Indeed, athletes clearly communicated that overly directive environments resulted in diminished trust and psychological disengagement – effects similarly observed by Jin et al. ²¹ These accounts align with Jowett's ²⁷ concept of the coach-athlete relationship as a reciprocal and co-constructed partnership, in which leadership effectiveness is continuously negotiated through closeness, commitment, and complementarity rather than imposed through authority.

Consequently, these findings suggest that swimmers experienced leadership as effective when it was characterised by emotional intelligence, collaboration, and adaptive responsiveness. ²⁸ In interpretive terms, athletes show shared meaning of leadership through the felt experience of being heard, included, and emotionally acknowledged within their environment.

Cross-disciplinary collaboration and team culture

The athletes’ emphasis on cohesive cross-disciplinary collaboration among support staff also carries important theoretical implications. Historically, leadership frameworks such as the MML have focused primarily on dyadic coach–athlete relationships, often overlooking the broader interdisciplinary dynamics characteristic of elite sport environments. In contrast, athletes in this study consistently highlighted that leadership effectiveness was shaped by the quality and coherence of communication across the entire support team. This collective emphasis aligns with interpretivist perspectives that conceptualise leadership as socially constructed and distributed across relational networks rather than embodied by a single individual.

In swimmers’ lived experience, distributed leadership was not understood as a formal sharing of authority, but as the everyday alignment of communication, behaviour, and emotional support across the performance system. Athletes described leadership as emerging through consistent messages and shared understanding between the head coach and support staff, including strength and conditioning coaches, physiotherapists, nutritionists, and psychologists. When these roles were aligned, swimmers experienced the environment as stable, coherent, and psychologically safe. Conversely, fragmented or contradictory communication weakened leadership, increasing uncertainty and emotional strain. Leadership was therefore encountered not through the actions of one individual, but through the collective functioning of the system as experienced by the athlete on a daily basis.

These findings extend understandings of leadership beyond dyadic coach–athlete interactions, illustrating how leadership in elite swimming is experienced as an emergent property of the wider performance environment. This interpretation aligns with Fletcher and Arnold's concept of integrated leadership teams shaping medal-winning environments ³⁶ and supports Erikstad et al.'s assertion ²⁸ that structured, transformational collaboration across coaching teams enhances athlete confidence, motivation, and psychological outcomes. Together, these perspectives highlight how athletes’ leadership experiences in elite swimming are deeply embedded within collective team culture, reinforcing leadership as a shared, relational practice rather than a hierarchical function.

The importance of understanding the ‘why’: cognitive engagement in leadership

One of the study's most salient contributions was athletes’ repeated emphasis on the importance of clearly communicated rationales behind coaching decisions. Athletes explicitly linked understanding the ‘why’ behind training approaches with higher levels of psychological engagement, commitment, and sustained motivation within demanding high-performance environments. This finding aligns with elements of the MML's ‘preferred behaviour’ dimension, which suggests that athletes respond more positively when leadership behaviours align with their preferences and needs. ¹⁷

However, rather than indicating the effectiveness of particular leadership behaviours, these accounts illustrate how swimmers make sense of leadership through cognitive understanding and shared reasoning. Through an interpretivist lens, this theme reflects how athletes attribute meaning and purpose to leadership when coaches articulate the rationale underpinning training decisions. When the ‘why’ was made explicit, athletes described an increased capacity to internalise training demands, fostering co-ownership, trust, and shared sense-making rather than passive compliance.

This cognitive aspect of engagement appeared particularly salient during periods of training fatigue and competitive stress, where athletes indicated that alignment alone was insufficient without understanding. In this sense, swimmers’ narratives suggest that leadership was experienced as enabling psychological empowerment through clarity and explanation, positioning understanding as central to how leadership was lived rather than merely enacted.

In interpretive terms, these accounts position understanding as a relational process that transforms leadership from directive instruction into co-created meaning within the coach–athlete relationship. This interpretation resonates with Jowett's ²⁷ relational framework, in which communication and mutual understanding are foundational to effective leadership experiences, and aligns with McGuckin et al.'s findings ⁶ that coaches’ explanations of training purposes shape athlete confidence, motivation, and satisfaction. Together, these perspectives reinforce the significance of cognitive transparency as a meaningful component of leadership as experienced by elite swimmers.

Conclusion

This study explored leadership preferences among Olympic swimmers, identifying four critical dimensions of athlete-centred leadership: emotionally intelligent coach-athlete relationships; collaborative and autonomy-supportive approaches; integrated cross-disciplinary team cultures; and transparent, cognitively engaging feedback. Collectively, these findings reinforce recent research advocating dynamic, adaptive leadership models within elite individual sport contexts. Notably, the emphasis placed by male swimmers on emotional intelligence and collaboration challenges traditional gender-based leadership assumptions, suggesting that sport-specific demands and relational dynamics may outweigh generalised gender distinctions.

A key implication is that existing leadership frameworks may not fully capture swimmers’ lived experiences of emotional responsiveness, cognitive transparency, and temporal flexibility in leadership, suggesting valuable directions for future conceptual work. Practically, the research underscores the urgent need for coach education programmes to embed emotionally intelligent, collaborative, and transparent communication practices, directly addressing contemporary concerns about athlete psychological safety and welfare within elite swimming environments.

However, the study's conclusions are subject to several limitations. As with most qualitative research, the findings are not intended to be statistically generalisable but to offer contextually grounded insights that prioritise trustworthiness and depth of interpretation. Transferability should therefore be considered within comparable high-performance environments rather than as universal generalisation. As participants reflected on past leadership experiences, their accounts may have been influenced by memory, hindsight bias, social desirability, or current relationships with coaches. Although recruitment was conducted independently of governing bodies to reduce power dynamics, the process may have attracted athletes more reflective and open to discussing leadership, potentially excluding contrasting or less engaged perspectives. The sample included nine swimmers who competed in Paris 2024 and six who competed in previous cycles but remained in full-time training, ensuring recency yet introducing some variability in the immediacy of their reflections. The researcher's insider position within elite swimming may also have shaped interpretations; however, reflexive awareness and methodological rigour were maintained to enhance credibility and mitigate bias. Additionally, the predominantly British participant sample limits broader international transferability, while the researcher's dual role as peer and interviewer, though facilitating rapport, may have introduced subtle interpretive bias. Future research should incorporate more culturally diverse samples and adopt longitudinal designs to explore how leadership preferences evolve across athletic careers.

Ultimately, by foregrounding athlete voices, this research provides timely insights into effective leadership practices, highlighting that elite swimming environments must prioritise emotional responsiveness, collaborative decision-making, and clear communication. Such leadership not only optimises performance but also supports sustained athlete well-being within high performance contexts.