A COMPARISON OF LEADERSHIP PRACTICES OF COLLEGIATE STUDENT-ATHLETES AND NON-ATHLETE PEERS: SEEKING SOLUTIONS TO THE LEADERSHIP SUCCESSION CRISIS IN CORPORATE AMERICA

Abstract

Executives throughout corporate America have been critical of higher education due to a lack in leadership readiness of recent college graduates. The leadership epidemic of young professionals is being described as the Leadership-Succession Crisis in corporate America where a shortage of young, high potential leaders who are capable of replacing upper-level managers transitioning out of their current roles exists. Recent literature suggests Human Resource (HR) departments are recruiting and hiring former student-athletes as a possible solution to the Leadership Succession Crisis. Participation in sports has long been viewed to provide athletes with increased leadership ability dating back some 2,500 years to the ancient Olympic Games. Athletic involvement is widely believed to provide enhanced leadership development. Athletes have the opportunity to learn and grow in structured environments through ongoing relationships with teammates and coaches. However, limited empirical evidence exists when comparing leadership development of student-athletes with their non-athlete peers.

The purpose of this study was to compare whether collegiate student-athletes are better leaders than their collegiate non-athlete peers based on their perceptions of their leadership skills. The study utilized the Student Leadership Practices Inventory (Student LPI) to measure self-perceptions of leadership behaviors of college students (n = 1,454). Kouzes and Posner's LPI is one of the most widely used leadership assessments in the business world and the Student LPI is one of the few leadership instruments designed for and validated on students. The instrument uses a 5-point Likert-scale to measure when students are "at their personal best" as leaders through five practices (Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act, and Encourage the Heart).

Two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to measure the relationship between athlete status (student-athletes (n = 660) and non-athlete peers (n = 794)) and division level (Division I (n = 398), Division II (n = 328), Division III (n = 728)) on the five leadership practices. The study provides empirical evidence that collegiate student-athletes reported engaging more frequently in four out of five leadership practices (Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Encourage the Heart) than their collegiate non-athlete peers. The results indicate that athletic involvement can serve as a type of leadership development experience for collegiate student-athletes, and that it is reasonable for HR departments to consider candidates with athletic backgrounds as more likely to possess some leader skills than their non-athlete peers during the hiring process.