Leaders’ perceptions of performance support team effectiveness in elite sport

Abstract

Performance support teams are central to optimising athlete health, wellbeing, and performance in elite sport, yet team effectiveness depends on more than the aggregation of specialist expertise. Despite increasing attention on leadership in sport, limited research has examined how leaders facilitate team effectiveness within performance support teams. The purpose of this study was to examine performance support team leaders’ perceptions on facilitating team effectiveness in elite sport. Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with leaders of performance support teams across elite sport organisations, including the English Premier League, Premiership rugby, Netball Super League, Olympic sports, and international football, cricket, and netball. Three themes were generated to explain how leaders contribute to performance support team effectiveness. Creating Alignment in Complex Performance Environments captured how leaders establish shared direction, align people and resources, and structure collaboration around performance needs. Leading Through Relationships reflected how leaders prioritise the person ahead of the practitioner, build trust that enables challenge, and foster cohesion amongst team members. Building and Mobilising Expertise Across the Team described how leaders drew on experience to inform decisions, recruit complementary perspectives and develop ownership and autonomy. Together, these findings position leadership in performance support teams as a relational, context-sensitive, and system-shaping practice, with practical implications for leadership development, recruitment, team design, and team effectiveness.

Introduction

In an effort to optimise sporting outcomes, elite sport organisations are increasingly relying on performance support teams.^1,2 Defined as “a team that comprises individuals from diverse perspectives, skillsets, and areas of expertise who work collaboratively to optimise athlete(s) performance”, ³ these multiteam systems commonly (but not exclusively) include medical personnel, sport scientists, strength and conditioning coaches, psychologists, and nutritionists. ⁴ These multiteam systems are tightly coupled constellations of experts working interdependently toward a common objective (e.g., optimisation of athlete health, wellbeing and performance), offering specialised and diverse skills, capabilities, and functions in challenging performance environments. ⁵ However, whilst performance support teams have the ability to positively impact athletic performance^2,6 and contribute to the overall performance of elite sport organisations,^1,7 they can also foster competition and conflict, impacting a team's chances of success.^8–10 As such, the effectiveness of performance support teams is not merely the aggregation of composite experts; rather, it depends on a multi-level, complex compilation of factors. ³

Team effectiveness is an emerging area of research and theory development within organisational psychology that is concerned with 1) a team's capacity and ability to achieve its objectives, and 2) how the team performs to achieve (or fail to achieve) the task. ¹¹ It has been delineated from team performance (i.e., outcome focus), team functioning (i.e., required knowledge, skills, and abilities), and teamwork (i.e., behavioural processes), yet it is reliant on all of these variables. ¹² Most models of team effectiveness are grounded in the input-process-output (IPO) framework formulated by McGrath ¹³ which have since evolved to an input-mediators-output (IMO) framework to better acknowledge the role of mediators, reciprocal influences, temporal dynamics, and the cyclical nature of team effectiveness.^11,14 Inputs represent the multilevel (i.e., individual, team and environment) antecedent variables that enable or constrain the ability of team members to achieve task demands. Mediators include both team processes—behaviours amongst team members that reflect the colloquial notion of ‘teamwork’ and emergent states—affective or cognitive states that develop over time as a result of team member interactions. Therefore, team effectiveness is reliant upon the successful aggregation and integration of multidimensional components that interact effectively within complex environments. Using team effectiveness as the underpinning conceptualisation in the current study enables an exploration of what the core components are and, how teams and their leaders facilitate performance support team effectiveness in elite sport. This established conceptual framework has been applied within multiteam system literature, ¹⁵ sporting contexts ¹⁶ and more specifically performance support teams, ¹² thereby underscoring its relevance and applicability to the present study.

Within the multiteam system^17,18 and sporting ¹⁹ literatures, leadership has been found to be a fundamental component in team effectiveness. In fact, it has been argued that “effective leadership processes represent the most critical factor in the success of organisational teams”. ¹⁸ More specifically, it has been reported that performance support team leaders are central to facilitating team effectiveness in elite sport, both conceptually ²⁰ and empirically.^3,21,22 Whether leadership is characterised as an input ¹³ or mediator ¹⁵ within team effectiveness frameworks, it is evident that the leader's role is to improve outcomes by shaping effective interaction processes among interdependent system components. ¹⁷ However, despite the large bodies of literature on both leadership^23–25 and team/group dynamics ²⁶ we know surprisingly little about how leaders create and manage team effectiveness. Similarly, there is an abundance of sport leadership research, which has traditionally centred on two broad disciplines: sport psychology, which has typically concerned itself with the on-field aspects of performance (e.g., how coaches and/or athlete leaders can facilitate effective teamwork amongst players ²⁷ ); and sport management, which has centred primarily on off-field, governance-level factors of elite sport organisations (e.g., how formal structure and processes impact team performance ¹⁹ ). Importantly, Fletcher and Wagstaff ²⁸ highlighted that neither of these areas in isolation comprehensively address how individuals and teams interact with the broader organisation, nor how personnel are effectively led.

As a result of this twilight zone ²⁸ in the sporting literature, there has been an emergence of research exploring elements of organisational psychology in sport. In relation to team effectiveness in elite sport, Webster et al. ²² and Stewart et al. ³ investigated the perceptions and experiences of performance support team members in elite sport. Both studies identified leadership as a fundamental mechanism underpinning the effectiveness of performance support teams. Key contributing factors included the development and articulation of a clear vision and philosophy, the cultivation of a supportive working environment, and the consistent role modelling of desired behaviours. Crucially, although existing literature highlights the perceived importance of performance support team leaders, it has not yet explored the perceptions of the leaders themselves. Indeed, Fletcher and Arnold ²⁹ state the need for researchers to consider what leaders do in specific contexts and situations; in other words, there is a need to better understand how performance support team leaders create and lead effective teams in elite sport. As such, the purpose of this study is to explore team effectiveness through the perceptions and experiences of performance support team leaders (i.e., head of performance support, head of sport science and medicine) in elite sporting environments. It is expected that such an investigation will advance our understanding of how leadership is enacted within this contextually specific and under researched population. In doing so, the results from this study will help bridge the gap between abstract theory and practical application, providing valuable insights for both researchers and practitioners in elite sport.

Methods

This study is underpinned by philosophical assumptions of ontological relativism and epistemological interpretivism. ³⁰ As such, a phenomenological study design and qualitative methodology was selected to better understand experiential and lived aspects of those leading performance support teams in elite sport. Semi-structured interviews were considered the most appropriate method of data collection, as they encourage participants to provide in-depth, rich information that resonates at a personal level and captures the subjective meaning in contextual situations. ³¹ Such interviews allow the interviewer to probe for further detail when required, yet offers the flexibility for the participant to explore the multiple perspectives they deem important. ³² Semi-structured interviews have also previously been used to explore performance leadership and management in elite sport environments.^29,33,34

Procedure

Following ethical approval from the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences at Loughborough University, performance support team managers (e.g., head of performance support) were contacted via email or social media messaging to ascertain interest in participating in the study. Individuals were purposefully targeted based on their leadership role within elite sport organisations. A diverse range of performance support team leaders from professional and government-funded team and individual sports were contacted. Participant information sheets were provided, and consent was obtained for those interested in participating Following this a mutually convenient date and time for the interview was agreed with the participant. Participant demographic forms, and a digital meeting request was sent prior to the interview. Online synchronous (real-time), one-on-one interviews were selected as a way of engaging hard-to-reach participants who might otherwise be unavailable for a face-to-face meeting and those from broader geographical areas. In accordance with institutional guidance, all interviews were conducted on Microsoft Teams.

Participants

Purposive sampling was employed to ensure the inclusion of contextually relevant participants who hold comparable roles across a variety of elite sports. The intent was to capture cross-disciplinary insights and uncover both shared and divergent experiences related to performance support team effectiveness in elite sport. By sampling across sports but within similar professional roles, we sought to develop a holistic understanding of the phenomenon, potentially developing common themes that may be obscured in single-sport investigations.^35,36

The sample (n = 12) included individuals over the age of 18 years who directly manage performance support teams in elite sport (defined as elite/international or world class athletes ³⁷ ). Eleven males and one female participated in this study, with ages ranging from 36 to 55 years (M = 44.7, SD = 5.5). The participants had been working within elite sport organisations for between 12 and 24 years (M = 19.1, SD = 4.3) and had led performance support teams for between 6 and 20 years (M = 11.4, SD = 5.4). Participants represented elite sporting organisations from summer (n = 5) and winter Olympic sports (n = 1), English Premier League football (n = 1), Premiership rugby (n = 1), Super League netball (n = 1), international cricket (n = 1), international netball (n = 1), and international football (n = 1). Interestingly, although all participants had direct managerial responsibility, their role title varied between organisations (e.g., ‘Head of Performance’, ‘Head of Performance Support’, ‘Head of Performance Science and Medicine’).

Owing to the subjective and interpretive nature of this study, it was deemed inappropriate to use predetermined sample size or saturation (data, thematic, and/or code) considerations in isolation to conclude data collection. ³⁸ As suggested by Braun and Clarke, ³⁸ a pragmatic approach to determining sample size was used within this study. Specifically, a combination of data adequacy (i.e., depth and richness) and sample size were used to conclude data collection. Owing to the homogenous sample and depth of data collected, 12 interviews was sufficient to fulfil both adequacy and conformity to sample size recommendations (between 9–17 interviews ³⁹ ).

Interview guide

A semi-structured interview guide was used to facilitate discussion and was constructed using a combination of knowledge gleaned from team effectiveness and sport leadership literature and the author's first-hand experiences in sport. The interview guide was divided into three main sections. Section one was designed to build rapport, gain a better understanding of the participants’ backgrounds (e.g., can you talk me through your career to date?), and explore their knowledge of performance support team leadership (e.g., how do you believe performance support team leaders can positively impact team effectiveness?). Section two was designed to understand what contributes to performance support team effectiveness and how leaders facilitate these constructs (e.g., in your opinion, what are the key contributors to effective performance support teams and how do you, as a leader facilitate such?). Section three posed questions relating to the role of the organisation and environment (e.g., does the organisational structure/hierarchy impact your ability to be an effective leader? If so, how?). In an attempt to ensure all relevant information had been collected, participants were asked if they wanted to revisit any topics and were given the opportunity to highlight any pertinent areas they believed had not been discussed.

Data analysis

All interviews were digitally recorded in their entirety using Microsoft Teams. Interviews lasted between 56 and 109 min (M = 87.2, SD = 17.4), and were transcribed verbatim. Transcripts were imported into QSR NVivo Version 12, which was used to store, structure, and organise the data during analysis. Reflexive thematic analysis was selected as the most appropriate analytical method because the study sought to explore participants’ experiences while recognising the active role of the researcher in interpreting those accounts.^40,41 Rather than treating themes as self-evident findings already present in the data, reflexive thematic analysis enabled themes to be developed as interpretative accounts of patterned meaning. This approach aligned with the experiential and inductive orientation of the study, allowing participants’ accounts to remain central while acknowledging that analysis was shaped by the researcher's theoretical understanding, reflexive engagement, and interpretative decision-making.

An abductive analytical approach was employed, allowing the researcher to move iteratively between participants’ accounts and existing conceptual understandings. ⁴² As such, the analytic process was not treated as a linear sequence of technical steps, but as a blended, recursive, and non-linear process in which familiarisation, coding, theme development, reviewing, refining, and writing overlapped. As the analysis progressed, codes, candidate themes, and interpretations were revisited and refined, including in response to reviewer feedback during the revision process. This further refinement helped ensure that the final themes moved beyond descriptive summaries and more clearly reflected the interpretative orientation of reflexive thematic analysis. This process was informed by Braun and Clarke's six-phase process for reflexive thematic analysis, ⁴¹ which was used as a flexible guide rather than a rigid procedure.

Familiarisation involved reading and re-reading each transcript while producing analytic notes that captured early impressions, points of interest, and possible assumptions. Systematic coding was then conducted to capture features of the data relevant to the research questions, including both semantic content and broader patterns of meaning. Coding was approached as an interpretative process rather than a mechanical labelling exercise; for example, participant descriptions of leaders “removing obstacles” for team members were initially coded as relating to empowerment. Earlier transcripts were revisited as the researcher's understanding of the dataset developed. Codes were then collated and examined for broader patterns of shared meaning, informing the generation of initial themes.

Theme development involved moving beyond topic summaries to consider the central organising concepts that connected coded extracts. Candidate themes were reviewed through repeated engagement with coded data, full transcripts, analytic notes, and the research questions. During this process, themes were revised, combined, separated, renamed, or discarded where they did not offer a coherent or meaningful interpretation of the data. Research team discussions supported reflexive questioning, rather than serving as consensus coding or inter-rater reliability checks. Themes were then refined, defined, and named to ensure that each captured a distinct aspect of the overall analytic story. Writing was also treated as part of the analytic process rather than simply the reporting of completed findings. This is consistent with Braun and Clarke's view of reflexive thematic analysis as a recursive process in which writing, reflection, and theme refinement are intertwined. ⁴¹ Drafting and subsequent manuscript revisions prompted further reflection on whether the themes provided interpretative accounts of patterned meaning rather than descriptive summaries.

Data analysis was conducted by one primary researcher, which is consistent with reflexive thematic analysis, where researcher subjectivity is understood as a resource for interpretation rather than a problem to be eliminated. ⁴¹ Throughout the analysis, the researcher engaged reflexively through analytic note-taking, revisiting earlier coding decisions, discussing developing interpretations with the research team, and refining themes through repeated engagement with the data. Thus, the final themes were understood as analytic outputs generated through the researcher's sustained interpretative labour.

Methodological integrity

The integrity of this study has been evaluated in relation to the composite processes identified by Levitt et al., ⁴³ namely fidelity (e.g., adequate data, perspective management in data collection and analysis, and groundedness) and utility (e.g., contextualisation, catalyst for insight, meaning contributions, and coherence). Data adequacy and study fidelity was augmented by the highly credible and rich data collected from performance support team leaders working in elite and world class sport organisations. Throughout the study, text exemplars have been used to provide original, contextual, and authentic narrative accounts from the participants, which intimately depict themes and enhances the groundedness of the study.^44,45

The fidelity of this study was enhanced by acknowledging researcher situatedness (i.e., author positionality and subjectivity). The interviewer within this study has been employed within elite sport organisations for over 10 years and has held leadership roles within performance support teams in elite sport, which served as a catalyst for insight and enhanced contextualisation. It is also acknowledged that interview guide design, critical thinking and decision making when generating themes may have been influenced by the researcher's positionality and prior knowledge of team effectiveness theory and frameworks. ⁴⁶ In an attempt to ensure quality and rigour throughout the analysis process, a number of strategies were employed. ⁴⁷ Firstly, there was sufficient time devoted to embracing and exploring the data before moving to the organic and recursive coding processes. Secondly, the primary researcher used reflexive journaling to record their insights and analytical developments, providing critical reflection upon the research process. Finally, the primary researcher worked with a research team to help review data for quality and accuracy, discussed initial analytic observations, and critically evaluated the analysis. Furthermore, in an attempt to ensure quality and rigour throughout data analysis, the researchers endeavoured to adhere to the 15-point criteria checklist outlined by Braun and Clarke. ⁴⁷

Results

Three themes were generated through reflexive thematic analysis, each capturing a distinct but interconnected pattern of shared meaning across participants’ accounts of leading performance support teams. The first theme, Creating Alignment in Complex Performance Environments, reflects how leaders create direction, coherence, and shared purpose by linking people, priorities, and resources to the wider performance plan. The second theme, Leading Through Relationships, highlights the relational nature of leadership, showing how trust, challenge, communication, and cohesion are cultivated through attending to the person behind the role and creating environments in which honest dialogue and collective working can flourish. The third theme, Building and Mobilising Expertise Across the Team, captures how leaders draw on their own experience and judgement, recruit complementary perspectives, structure teams effectively, and develop ownership and autonomy in others. Together, these themes suggest that leading performance support teams is a strategic, relational, and context-sensitive practice of creating the conditions in which performance support teams can operate effectively.

Creating alignment in complex performance environments

The first theme, Creating Alignment in Complex Performance Environments, speaks to how leaders create coherence across complex, multi-layered performance systems (see Figure 1). Across participant accounts, alignment was not treated as merely a transactional act of communication, but as an ongoing relational and organisational process. Leaders helped staff understand what the vision and strategy is, how their role contributed to it, and how their work connected with that of others. This theme comprised three subthemes: (1) Establishing a Shared Purpose and Direction, (2) Aligning People, Priorities and Resources, and (3) Structuring Collaboration around Performance Needs.

Figure 1.

Creating alignment in complex performance environments.

Establishing a shared purpose and direction

A prominent feature of participants’ accounts was the importance of leaders creating a clear sense of shared purpose and direction for the performance support team. This was expressed through the language of vision, mission, performance planning, and shared understanding. Rather than describing performance planning as a purely procedural exercise, participants framed it as a way of helping staff understand what the programme was working toward and how day-to-day activity connected to longer-term objectives. As one participant explained:

“There's a bit around vision, direction, helping people to understand what they’re working towards. There needs to be a shared understanding of what performance looks like and what they’re trying to strive towards and then there's the process, ways of working to make it come alive.” (Participant 5)

One participant referred to the overarching vision and direction as “cloud view” and performance planning (i.e., coordinating the day-to-day actions) as “street view” (Participant 12), helping to connect long-term purpose with everyday practice. Leaders were described as helping staff to “see it the same way, say it the same way” (Participant 12), so that there was a shared understanding of both performance goals and how these should be pursued. Participant 12 also added, “shared consciousness, is everyone knowing what's going on and where they can collaborate and contribute”. Participants suggested that effective leaders did more than articulate broad ambitions, they made direction meaningful and usable. Participant 6 reflected that people “want to feel like they belong to something which is greater than just their role” and want to know “what part their role is playing in the wider organisation achieving its objectives”. This highlights that direction-setting was experienced not only as strategic clarification, but also as a way of generating meaning, connection, and commitment.

Aligning people, priorities and resources

Beyond establishing direction, participants consistently described leadership as the work of aligning people, priorities, and resources around what mattered most. This included making decisions about what to prioritise, ensuring that the right people were supporting the right areas, and linking strategic intent to the deployment of time, expertise, and resources. Participant 8 stated that “the key one is around alignment of the support team to the performance plan,” adding that leaders also needed to consider whether “the people we have within the team have the skillsets to deliver what's needed to enable the performance plan”. Here, alignment was described as the practical matching of people and capability to performance need. Participant 2 articulated this particularly explicitly through the sequence “define, align, add, amplify”. In their view, leaders first needed to define what the programme was trying to achieve, and then “align projects… align skillsets… align people… align resource around the stuff that's important” (Participant 2). Notably, this alignment was said to occur not only within the support team itself, but also through objective setting, recruitment, engagement with stakeholders, and the alignment of language. As one participant noted, “adaptability and flexibility around your management style is important” (Participant 1). It was acknowledged that leaders interact and serve multiple stakeholders which requires the leader to adapt and align dependent on who they are interacting with. This suggests that participants understood alignment as something broader than internal team coordination, it also involved navigating coaches, senior leaders, and other stakeholders so that people and provision remained connected to the wider performance environment.

Participants further indicated that alignment was especially important in systems characterised by multiple sites, pathways, teams, and reporting lines. They described a team of teams in which people belonged to multiple clusters and needed enough shared understanding to know how their work connected with others. Participant 8 described how strategic review meetings enabled support staff, coaches, and senior leaders to look across individual athlete plans and then “adjust resource” or “add some more budget”. These accounts suggest that alignment was achieved not through rigid control, but through creating enough shared strategic visibility that resource and attention could be coordinated responsively.

Structuring collaboration around performance needs

The third subtheme reflects how participants described collaboration as something that needed to be actively structured rather than assumed. Instead of leaving disciplines to work in parallel, leaders described using processes, communication systems, and shared problem-framing to support more integrated ways of working. A recurring pattern across interviews was the reframing of work away from discipline-specific tasks and towards shared performance problems. Participant 8 explained that athlete goals were “not discipline labelled” and that the team used “mini project groups” around areas such as training optimisation and athlete health. As they noted, “this is a training optimisation problem, not an S&C [strength and conditioning] problem or a sports science problem or a whatever”, illustrating how reframing issues in broader performance terms helped draw multiple practitioners, and often coaches, into the same conversation. Similarly, participant 12 described collaboration as being engineered by “posing things as problems and putting multiple people around it”. In this sense, collaboration was not left to chance, but supported through explicit structures, role allocation, and shared ownership of performance needs. Participants also highlighted communication and knowledge-sharing mechanisms as important for sustaining collaboration, particularly in systems characterised by part-time staff, multiple locations, and variable contact time. Participant 8 described shared dashboards, online training platforms, recorded meetings, and regular planning reviews as ways of ensuring that staff could stay aware of what was happening without all information passing through the leader. As they explained, the aim was to create an environment “where people are aware of what's happening, so if they’ve got something to contribute they can, but they’re not having to be in every single meeting in order to be aware of what's happening” (Participant 8). Together, these accounts suggest that effective collaboration depended not only on bringing the right people together, but on creating structures that distributed awareness, supported contribution, and reduced over-reliance on the leader as a gatekeeper.

Leading through relationships

The second theme, Leading Through Relationships, reflects the relational nature of leadership within performance support teams and highlights how leaders work through interpersonal dynamics (see Figure 2). Across participant accounts, relationships were not framed as a soft or secondary element of leadership, but as the means through which trust was developed, challenge was made possible, and collaborative working was sustained. This theme comprised three subthemes: (1) People First, Practitioner Second, (2) Creating Trust to Foster Challenge, and (3) Building Cohesion for Collective Performance.

Figure 2.

Leading through relationships.

People first, practitioner second

A prominent feature of participants’ accounts was the view that effective leadership in performance support teams begins with recognising the person, not just the professional. Rather than treating staff, coaches, or athletes as functional units within a performance system, participants emphasised the importance of understanding people's motivations, backgrounds, and wider context. One participant described this as needing to “understand and seek to understand the person behind the coach or the person behind the athlete” (Participant 2), arguing that such understanding was critical to effective interaction. Empathy was described as “understanding others and understanding other people's perspectives” (Participant 4). Being attentive to individuals’ circumstances, perspectives, and needs was seen as fundamental to building effective relationships. One participant explained that “knowing the person helps” and that “trying to understand the context helps” (Participant 9), particularly when staff or coaches were balancing different demands. In a similar vein, one participant described wanting staff in their team to be treated as “people first and then practitioners second” (Participant 11), suggesting that attending to family, wellbeing, and person-to-person interaction was central to maintaining respect and getting the best from others. Taken together, these accounts suggest that seeing the person behind the role was more than a display of interpersonal sensitivity, it was understood as a practical leadership process that shaped how support was given and how relationships were formed.

Creating trust to foster challenge

Many participants described trust as a central condition underpinning challenge and, ultimately, performance support team effectiveness in elite sport. This was captured clearly by Participant 3, who stated, “Trust is everything to me. If I can’t trust you, I can’t work with you”. Likewise, Participant 4 argued that trust could not simply be assumed, “trust has got to be fostered, we can’t just think that people should just trust us”. For this participant, trust was built through character, transparency, and consistency, particularly through “doing what you say you’re going to do, and you don’t just do it once, you repeatedly do it” (Participant 4). Trust was therefore understood as something leaders actively built through repeated behaviours rather than something automatically conferred by role or status. Across interviews, trust was closely linked to psychological safety and it was perceived that leaders’ play an active role in creating an environment where staff feel able to explore, make mistakes, and speak up. Participant 2 described using the language of “safe to fail, safe to explore” and linked this to leader vulnerability, particularly when leaders acknowledge that they do not know something. In this sense, trust was about creating permission for uncertainty, experimentation, and learning.

Participants further suggested that challenge was only perceived as productive when it was experienced as developmental and objective rather than personal. Participant 1 noted that “a lot of challenging conversations don’t always happen well, because people take challenge to mean something negative, and something personal, rather than a professional critique”. Similarly, Participant 12 described wanting “a group that can challenge each other and have robust discussion without it being personal”, arguing that leaders needed to “model that” and reinforce it through practice, “talk about it, model it, reward it” (Participant 12). Participant 5 also questioned passive understandings of psychological safety, suggesting it should not simply mean that people “feel safe,” but that teams can have “a tough, courageous conversation, and you’re not going to take it personally” (Participant 5). Together, these accounts suggest that trust and psychological safety were valued not because they removed difficulty, but because they made it possible for team members to be open, honest, and direct, and for challenge to be experienced as constructive rather than negative.

Building cohesion for collective performance

Participants described cohesion as an important feature of effective performance support teams, often distinguishing between task cohesion and social cohesion. Task cohesion referred to shared goals, role clarity, and collective purpose, whereas social cohesion referred to the quality of interpersonal relationships and the extent to which team members enjoyed working together. While some participants suggested that teams might function in the short term with task cohesion alone, many argued that longer-term effectiveness depended on some degree of social cohesion. As Participant 7 explained, “teams that get on better can function better,” adding that “the stronger the relationship, the more abrasion you can have because you can walk out the door and know that it's not personal, it's about a task and you can move on” (Participant 7). Similarly, Participant 8 described cohesion as playing an important role, particularly in camp and competition settings where “the level of social cohesion is massively important” given the intense, pressurised nature of the environment.

Participants also linked cohesion to the wider quality of the environment. One participant described social cohesion as “a non-negotiable within environments”, suggesting that if cohesion was poor, athlete experience and staff engagement would also suffer (Participant 4). Participant 1 similarly argued that, although task cohesion may be sufficient “in the short-term to deliver results”, social cohesion is particularly important for longer-term team performance. As they noted, if people do not enjoy spending time together, “they’re not going to stay in that role very long” (Participant 1). Across interviews, leaders described fostering cohesion deliberately rather than leaving it to chance. One participant spoke positively about creating “shared experiences” because when people spent time together, “they feel more connected” and this “builds community… and creates human connection” (Participant 12). In a similar way, Participant 2 explained, “I like to purposely talk non-performance a lot of the time with staff,” using informal conversation to build “interconnectivity between staff” (Participant 2). Together, these accounts suggest that cohesion was valued not simply because it made the team environment a more pleasant place to work, but because it supported connection, retention, and the quality of collective performance.

Building and mobilising expertise across the team

The third theme, Building and Mobilising Expertise Across the Team, reflects how leadership within performance support teams was understood not simply as directing others, but as drawing on, coordinating, and developing expertise across the wider team (see Figure 3). Participants described effective leadership as involving the use of personal experience and judgement, the recruitment of complementary perspectives and the development of ownership and autonomy in others. In this sense, leaders were perceived not only to contribute their own knowledge and experience, but also to create the conditions in which the expertise of others could be used effectively and developed over time. This theme comprised three subthemes: (1) Drawing on Experience to Navigate Complexity, (2) Recruiting Complementary Perspectives, and (3) Developing Ownership and Autonomy.

Figure 3.

Building and mobilising expertise across the team.

Drawing on experience to navigate complexity

Participants described effective leadership in performance support teams as involving the ability to draw on prior experience and apply sound judgement in complex, uncertain, and high-pressure environments. Rather than suggesting that leaders needed to know everything, accounts emphasised the value of accumulated experience alongside the capacity to ask good questions, interpret performance problems, identify opportunities and gaps and act decisively when needed. One participant was particularly explicit in this regard, arguing that leaders “have to have a decent accrued bank of experiences” and, importantly, “if they don’t have that, they seek experiences from others, or they get peer review” (Participant 2). Reflecting on moving between sports, Participant 6 noted that over time “you begin to recognise patterns and that if you pay attention to these things, they give you a better chance of being successful” (Participant 6). Experience was therefore valued not as a fixed source of knowledge or authority, but as contextual insights that help inform decision making.

The ability to demonstrate humility and recognise one's limits was viewed as important. Participant 2 described humility as “the fact that there would always be things that you don’t know, that other people can and will know” (Participant 2). Similarly, Participant 8 emphasised “good questioning”, “being curious about performance problems,” and having “a level of experience where you can contribute, support, challenge, and give a different lens on” the issue at hand. For this participant, judgement was not simply about having answers, but about “stopping any sort of group think” (Participant 8), informing potentially difficult decisions and anticipating future demands. As Participant 3 noted, “a good leader has to be able to make decisions and not be afraid that 50% of the room might not like the decision”. Another participant described the role of the leader as being “six, twelve, eighteen months ahead” and understanding “the problems and opportunities that people are facing now and, in the future” (Participant 5). Taken together, these accounts suggest that effective leadership in elite sport involves drawing on experience, developing a deep understanding of performance problems, making informed decisions, and anticipating future demands.

Recruiting complementary perspectives

Participants framed recruitment as a strategic opportunity to actively shape the composition, structure, and collective capacity of the performance support team. As Participant 4 stated, “one of the most important things we do [as a leader] is recruitment”. Participants suggested that recruitment criteria were varied and context specific, but also emphasised the need to consider what the team required at a given time. For example, Participant 8 described asking, “what do we need at this point in time as a team?” and “how does that [recruit] contribute to the team make-up?”. Participant 12 argued that leaders should look for “someone who's competent, someone who's got a really good character, is a cultural fit, and someone that's got the motivation to come in and drive forward and create change” (Participant 12). As such, leaders were looking for people whose qualities, perspectives, and ways of working would complement what was already present rather than simply mirror what already exists.

Importantly, cultural fit was not described as preserving the status quo. As Participant 6 explained, “a cultural fit might be somebody who's going to come in and shake it up a bit, because that might be what the culture needs” (Participant 6). Recruitment was therefore understood not as finding replicas of existing staff, but as identifying what the team needed. This emphasis on complementarity was evident across interviews. Participant 5 described balancing “cultural / team fit” with “bringing something different to the group… increasing the diversity and the variety of input, expertise, experience”. Similarly, Participant 11 stressed that “team fit is massively important,” but made clear that this did not mean building “a team full of everybody who look[s] the same, thinks the same”. Taken together, these accounts suggest that recruitment was viewed as a strategic leadership task, shaped by what the team needed at a given time and oriented towards complementarity rather than replication, with cultural fit understood as dynamic and diversity of input seen as central to team effectiveness.

Developing ownership and autonomy

Participants described developing ownership and autonomy in others as a key part of effective leadership in performance support teams. Rather than viewing leadership as maintaining tight control over decisions and delivery, they emphasised the importance of creating conditions in which staff could take responsibility, lead areas of work, and act with autonomy. This was often framed as both a practical necessity and a developmental strategy. Participant 12 captured this clearly when reflecting on a distributed system in which they “couldn’t be in two places at once,” explaining that “you had to create this empowered group of people to be able to make decisions and deliver the product… it can’t be solely reliant on you” (Participant 12). Across interviews, autonomy was closely linked to empowerment and to the avoidance of micromanagement. Participant 4 argued that “they need to be empowered, they need to have ownership,” and suggested that leadership was ineffective if it involved constantly directing or over-controlling others. Another participant warned that if leaders insist on controlling everything themselves, they create “visibility for themselves and invisibility for everybody else,” whereas stepping back could “allow them to feel empowered” (Participant 9) which supports their growth.

In this sense, ownership was not simply about distributing tasks, it was about allowing others to be seen and trusted. Participants recognised that autonomy needed to be calibrated to capability and experience. Participant 4 explained that empowerment was dependent on having “confidence around their ability to understand and also their capability” (Participant 4). Where experience and capability was still developing, leaders might need to spend more time supporting, before stepping back. Taken together, these accounts suggest that developing ownership and autonomy was understood as a deliberate leadership process. Avoiding micromanagement, calibrating support to capability, and creating space for others to take responsibility and lead were believed to enhance wider team capacity.

Discussion

This study explored how leaders facilitate performance support team effectiveness in elite sport. The findings suggest that leadership operates through three interrelated practices: creating alignment across complex performance environments, leading through relationships, and building and mobilising expertise across the team. Together, these themes position leadership not simply as technical oversight or individual influence, but as a relational, context-sensitive, and system-shaping practice through which leaders create direction, enable constructive challenge, and coordinate diverse expertise. In doing so, the study advances previous work on performance support team effectiveness by showing how leadership functions across strategic, relational, and developmental domains in elite sport. While existing models of team effectiveness in sport emphasise the importance of leadership, ¹⁶ and recent research has highlighted the central role of leaders in performance support teams,^3,22,33 the present findings add greater specificity by showing leadership to be a relational and organisational practice rather than merely a matter of individual characteristics and coordination.

The first theme (Creating Alignment in Complex Performance Environments) suggests that leadership in performance support teams is fundamentally a coherence-building practice. Consistent with previous work, leaders were described as creating and maintaining a shared vision,^3,22,29,48 yet the present findings extend this literature by highlighting that vision only becomes meaningful when it is translated into performance planning, shared understanding, and collaborative action for staff. In this sense, participants’ distinction between strategic “cloud view” and operational “street view” reflects the importance of aligning long-term purpose with day-to-day delivery, a process that closely resembles the development of shared mental models in effective teamwork. ¹¹ The findings also suggest that alignment is not only about vision, but about matching people, priorities, and resources to performance need, which supports earlier suggestions that shared understanding and aligned working are central to performance support team effectiveness.^3,33,49 In addition, the emphasis on shared understanding and lived team values suggests that alignment also helps shape culture through the shared beliefs, norms, and expectations that guide behaviour within the performance environment. ⁵⁰

This theme also states that collaboration must be deliberately structured in order to reduce siloed working and optimise the coordinated efforts of diverse expertise. This is consistent with recent work emphasising role clarity, supportive leadership, and collaborative planning in interdisciplinary teams.^51–53 Viewed through a social identity lens, these practices may do more than improve coordination. By establishing shared direction, language, and purpose, leaders may help transform a “team of teams” into a more coherent collective, strengthening mutual influence, collective motivation, and coordinated action around shared performance goals.^54,55 At the same time, the literature points to an important tension, that although integration is widely valued, it is neither uniformly experienced nor always desirable in every situation, suggesting that effective leaders do not simply maximise collaboration, but judge when greater integration is genuinely needed and when clearer disciplinary boundaries may be more effective.

The second theme (Leading Through Relationships) suggests that effective leadership in performance support teams operates through the strength of its relationships. First, participants’ emphasis on a people-first approach highlights that attending to context and responding to individual needs is critical. This aligns with prior work indicating that leaders’ attitudes and behaviours matter because of how they influence followers and shape the wider team environment.^29,56 It also resonates with transformational leadership research, particularly the notion of individual consideration, whereby leaders demonstrate care, personal attention, and responsiveness to followers’ needs. ⁵⁷ The present findings suggest that such relational attentiveness is not merely a desirable leadership trait, but a practical means through which respect, engagement, and influence are built in demanding performance environments. Interestingly, within this study, positively valanced and socially desirable ‘brighter’ leader traits appear to exclude ‘dark’ traits which have been previously shown to have both positive and negative influences.^48,58 This is presumably because participants within this study were reluctant to admit to displaying socially undesirable traits, even if they are utilised to positive effect.

Second, the findings highlight trust and psychological safety as central conditions through which challenge becomes possible. This aligns with Edmondson's ⁵⁹ argument that psychologically safe environments do not simply make things “easy” or lower demands; rather, they enable individuals to speak up, challenge assumptions, admit mistakes, and engage in difficult conversations that support learning, adaptation, and performance. Psychological safety is therefore not about avoiding discomfort, but about creating the conditions in which challenge and accountability can occur without fear of blame or humiliation. This interpretation is also consistent with research on high-performance coaching and athlete support teams, where trust, psychological safety, and communication have been identified as key factors underpinning cohesion and team effectiveness.^60,61 In the present study, these conditions were framed as creating the possibility for honest, direct, and constructive challenge without it becoming personal.

Finally, the theme suggests that both task and social cohesion are important not only because they contribute to a positive working environment, but because they support team effectiveness. A social identity lens helps make sense of this pattern. When leaders cultivate a stronger sense of shared “we”, members are more likely to trust one another, align with collective goals, and experience leadership as legitimate and motivating.^54,55 In this study, participants’ accounts particularly emphasised social cohesion as central to creating the relational conditions needed for collaborative working. While cohesion may carry potential risks of conformity and groupthink if left unchecked, it is also associated with communication, trust, support, and coordinated performance.^60,62 In contrast, previous research suggests that a lack of cohesion can contribute to siloed working, conflict, and a toxic working environment. ³ Thus, social cohesion appeared to function as a key relational mechanism through which leaders fostered collaboration, reduced fragmentation, and supported collective performance.

The third theme (Building and Mobilising Expertise Across the Team) suggests that leadership in performance support teams is not simply about directing expertise, but about recognising, combining, and developing it across the wider team. First, participants’ emphasis on experience and judgement indicates that effective leaders navigate complexity not by knowing everything, but by drawing on contextual knowledge, asking better questions, and making informed decisions. This aligns with recent work suggesting that performance support leaders rely on experience, emotional intelligence, and collaborative decision-making when addressing difficult problems in high-performance sport. ⁶³ It also resonates with emerging research showing that performance support practitioners must move between intuitive and deliberative approaches, rather than relying on a single rational or data-driven model of expertise. ⁶⁴ Expertise in this context, therefore, appears to involve not only technical proficiency, but also the capacity to interpret context, seek perspective, and exercise judgement in dynamic environments.

The findings drawn from the third theme also suggest that leaders build team expertise strategically through recruitment and team design. Participants described leaders as “cultural architects”, selecting staff not only on technical competence but also on team need, character, and complementarity. This supports earlier work emphasising the importance of balancing diversity and team fit.^3,65 However, the present findings add an important nuance, cultural fit was not framed as preserving the status quo, but as a dynamic judgement about what the team most needed. Structurally, leaders also appeared to favour flat or matrixed systems, consistent with literature suggesting that multiteam systems benefit from flexible, non-hierarchical designs that can enhance shared leadership, autonomy, and empowerment.^3,66 Finally, the theme highlights that expertise must be mobilised, not hoarded. Participants described effective leaders as creating ownership and autonomy in others by empowering staff, avoiding micromanagement, and distributing responsibility across the team. This aligns with research suggesting that growth is strengthened through challenging responsibilities, feedback, and support rather than formal instruction alone. ⁶⁷ At the same time, autonomy was not treated as something simply granted, but as something that needed to be calibrated to capability and facilitated through clear support structures and processes. Taken together, this theme suggests that leadership contributes to team effectiveness not only through personal expertise, but by creating the conditions in which collective expertise can be recruited, developed, and used effectively.

In summary, the three themes suggest that leadership contributes to performance support team effectiveness through a combination of strategic, relational, and developmental practices. Rather than operating primarily through technical oversight, leaders were described as creating alignment across complex systems, working through relationships, and mobilising expertise across the wider team. This reinforces Fletcher and Arnold's ²⁹ argument that the potential to influence change and performance is often greatest through leaders and managers, but extends that proposition by showing that such influence is exercised through the creation of shared direction, relational conditions for challenge and cohesion, and structures that enable expertise to be recruited, developed, and used effectively.

From an applied perspective, these findings suggest that leadership development in elite sport should extend beyond technical training and formal role preparation. Organisations may benefit from creating experience-based opportunities through which emerging and current leaders can learn in situ, such as shadowing senior staff, leading interdisciplinary case reviews, engaging in structured reflective debriefs after key decisions, and receiving feedback on how they manage alignment, relationships, and delegation. ⁶⁸ Recruitment processes should likewise be shaped by team need rather than technical expertise alone, with selection criteria assessing candidates’ ability to work collaboratively, communicate effectively, and contribute to the wider functioning of the team.^35,69 In practice, leaders may also need to structure team operations deliberately through regular integrated planning meetings, clear communication pathways, shared review processes, and project groups organised around performance problems rather than disciplinary boundaries. ⁷⁰ Finally, to strengthen longer-term team capacity, leaders should create opportunities for staff to take ownership of defined areas of work, with responsibility and autonomy progressively increasing in line with experience and capability.

Strengths, limitations, and future research

A key strength of this study lies in the calibre and contextual relevance of the participant sample. All participants occupied senior leadership roles within performance support teams in elite professional and international sporting contexts, representing a relatively small and under-researched population compared with athletes and coaches. As such, the study offers experience-rich insight into leadership within complex, high-performance environments. Nevertheless, several limitations should be acknowledged. First, the sample displayed a notable gender imbalance, with 11 male participants and only one female. Given that leadership experiences and enactments may vary by gender, future research should seek more diverse samples to examine these dynamics in greater depth. Second, all participants were based in the United Kingdom, which may limit the transferability of findings across different cultural, organisational, and high-performance systems. Third, although participants were drawn from a range of sports, the funding structures, staffing models, and institutional accountabilities across these environments varied considerably, and these contextual differences were not explored in detail. A further limitation is that the study draws solely on the perspectives of performance support team leaders. While this provides valuable insight into how leadership is understood and described by those in senior roles, it may also privilege more positively valanced accounts of leadership practice and limits the extent to which these findings can be contextualised through the experiences of coaches, practitioners, and other team members.

To build on the present findings, future research may also benefit from adopting a leadership-as-practice perspective, ⁷¹ shifting attention from the characteristics of individual leaders to the situated, socially constructed processes through which leadership is enacted in context. Observational, ethnographic, and multi-perspective designs that include coaches, practitioners, and other organisational stakeholders may provide a more nuanced understanding of how leadership unfolds in real time within multiteam systems. Such approaches would strengthen theoretical development while also enhancing the practical relevance of future research for organisations seeking to cultivate effective leadership in elite sport.

Conclusion

This study contributes to the growing literature on leadership and team effectiveness in elite sport by offering insight into how leaders facilitate performance support team effectiveness. Across the three themes, the findings suggest that leadership is enacted through creating alignment in complex performance environments, leading through relationships, and building and mobilising expertise across the team. In doing so, the study positions leadership not simply as a matter of technical oversight or individual capability, but as a relational, context-sensitive, and system-shaping practice. By highlighting implications for leadership development, recruitment, team design, and collaborative working, the study provides a foundation for strengthening both leadership practice and performance support team effectiveness in elite sport. Future research should continue to explore these dynamics using more diverse samples and multi-perspective, in situ approaches.