DOI:10.6129/CJP.201906_61(2).0002
Chinese Journal of Psychology 2019, Vol.61, No.2, 97-130

Does Authoritarian Leadership Lead to Bad Outcomes? A Contingency Perspective

Yu-Hung Cheng（Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University）；Wan-Ju Chou（Department of Psychology, Chung Yuan Christian University）；Te-Hsien Chou（The Athletic Department, National Taiwan University）；Bor-Shiuan Cheng（Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University）

Abstract

Previous studies on the sports team have mainly focused on the common phenomenon that coaches take strict control to require players to work hard in training. Many researchers have explored this phenomenon from the theoretical perspective of authoritarian leadership. Although these studies have accumulated preliminary results, they are mostly limited to qualitative interviews, but not directly examine the relationship between coaches’ authoritarian leadership style and players’ effort. Therefore, whether the authoritarian leadership can really encourage the players to put more efforts in training is still a puzzle and an important research void. In order to fulfill this void, this study adapts the dual dimensional model of authoritarian leadership, dividing authoritarian leadership into dominancefocus authoritarian leadership and discipline-focus authoritarian leadership. Also, taking the perspective of leadership contingency theory, we propose that player’s goal orientation is an important boundary condition. According to the data of 348 college players, discipline-focus authoritarian leadership enhances the player’s hard work; and the impact becomes nonsignificant when the player has a high avoid performance goal orientation or a high prove performance goal orientation. On the other hand, dominance-focus authoritarian leadership has a negative impact on the player’s hard work behavior only if the player has a low prove performance goal orientation. In this way, this study clarifies whether the strict control of the coach really encourages the players to work harder and fulfill the lack of research in the past for this important phenomenon.

Keywords: authoritarian leadership, contingency theory, effort, goal orientation, sport team