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Master Thesis Human Resource Studies The relationship between leadership, group cohesion and team performance in professional cycling teams Name: Carola Groeneveld Student ANR: 209019 1st Supervisor: Prof. Dr. M. Schalk 2nd Supervisor: Dr. M. Verhagen Project theme: Team obligations and performance Preface This master thesis is part of the final process in order to graduate for my master degree in Human Resource Studies at Tilburg University. Before this master I studied a bachelor Business Studies at the faculty of Economics at the same university. During this bachelor I developed great interest in the human part of business and economics. I was curious and wanted to get a better understanding of the most important and valuable assets of a company, the employees. Therefore I continued my master at the Social and Behavioural Sciences faculty. During my working and cycling career I was especially interested in the way how teams and people work together and in what way a manager or a coach can have influence on this and the final result. Accordingly it is obvious why this topic for research was chosen. Next to that, limited research concerning team obligations and performance was conducted within the sports context. Since cycling is one of my greatest passions and because of the fact that cycling teams are competing in a complex team environment, this thesis became even more interesting to write. First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor René Schalk for his great support, advice and patience during this whole process. In addition, I want to thank my beloved family, dear friends and my great colleagues for their support, motivational speeches and most of all their endless faith in me. It was of indispensable help and motivated me to finish this master thesis. 2 Abstract This study examines the relationship between leadership, group cohesion and team performance within a sports context. Based on previous relevant literature this study hypothesized that transformational leadership is positively related with group cohesion and team performance. Accordingly autocratic leadership was hypothesized to be negatively related with group cohesion and team performance. Next to that, group cohesion was hypothesized to be positively related with group cohesion. A cross-sectional survey research has been conducted among 56 international professional cyclists, cycling for 13 different teams and representing several nationalities by filling out a questionnaire. Additionally, six semi-structured interviews were conducted among cyclists and sports directors. Data was analysed by making use of descriptive statistics and hierarchical multiple regression analysis. Results could not indicate a positive relationship between transformational leadership and group cohesion or team performance. Next to that, a negative relationship between autocratic leadership with group cohesion and team performance could not be significantly confirmed. Finally, the positive relationship between group cohesion and team performance was partially supported. Keywords: transformational leadership, autocratic leadership, group cohesion, team performance 3 Table of Contents Preface 2 Abstract 3 1. Introduction 5 2. Theoretical Framework 8 2.1 Cycling Context 8 2.2 Leadership and Group Cohesion 9 2.3 Group Cohesion and Team Performance 10 2.4 Leadership and Team Performance 11 2.5 Conceptual Model 12 3. Method 13 3.1 Description of Test Subject 13 3.2 Procedure 14 3.3 Statistical Analysis 14 3.4 Instruments 15 3.5 Control Variables 17 3.6 Intraclass Correlations 18 3.7 Interviews 18 4. Results 20 4.1 Correlation Analysis 20 4.2 Hierarchical Regression Analysis 21 4.3 Interviews 25 5. Conclusion and Discussion 31 6. References 35 Appendix A: Leadership Scale for Sports 38 Appendix B: Group Environment Questionnaire 49 Appendix C: Factor Analyses 40 Appendix D: CQ Ranking 42 4 1. Introduction “There is no ‘I’ in TEAM”, is a commonly used saying, though it is a fact that a team is a group of a certain number of individuals. One might not always be aware of it, but teams are visible and active in our everyday life: in the supermarket, at work, on the road, at television and so on. A clear example where teams play an important role is in the sports world. Soccer, volleyball, rugby, hockey and basketball are all examples of team sports. At first sight it might sound strange but even cycling is considered to be a team sport. In contrast to soccer, only one individual can win the race, but if you take a further look at how this one (wo)man’s victory is accomplished, one may notice that this victory is an accumulation of the efforts of all the riders of the team. This team performance is best visible during a bunch sprint, when all teams try to set up their own sprint train in order to bring their sprinter in the perfect position to win the race. The cycling team cooperates closely, but only one wins, which means that the cyclists have to deal with a trade-off between individual goals and team goals. But how is it possible to create a successful team, when only one man can climb the podium instead of the whole team? According to Katzenbach and Smith (1993) a team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves accountable. In general, the objective of a team is to improve the overall performance, thus the result of a team should be more than just the sum of all the individuals. Being a member of a team means displaying loyalty to the goals and efforts of the team. Sometimes this might mean sacrificing personal achievements in favour of that of the team (Ellis & Dick, 2003). Arbitrarily putting people together with the best skills, exceptional qualities and a shared common goal is not simply a rule for success. Good examples of this are the national soccer teams. The Netherlands has been blessed with a number of world class soccer players in the past and during some years the Netherlands was even assumed to be one of the best teams in the world, if one looks at the individual qualities of the players. However, despite a lot of great performing individual players The Netherlands has not always been that successful. Obviously it takes more than just selecting the best players in order to create a successful team. During the recent soccer World Cup, Louis van Gaal showed that even with players which seem not that great on an individual level, you can create a well performing successful team. It was obvious to everyone that there was a great team spirit among the players and the staff. The national coach and several players mentioned this all the time during the World Cup event. Louis van Gaal says: ‘Success is all about managing expectations. Discipline is key, not coincidence, the people as a whole are part of the same team with the same goal. The best team wins, not just the best players.’ (Christern, 2014). After Louis van Gaal, Guus Hiddink took over the job of national coach. Hiddink is known for his coaching qualities, especially when it comes to working with national teams which are not high listed on the world ranking. Some may remember how he led the national team of South-Korea to the semi-finals of the world cup in 2002. Considering the individual qualities of the team nobody expected that South-Korea would reach the semi-finals. Apparently, Guus Hiddink possesses the talent to create a team which is greater than the sum of its individual team members by increasing the group cohesion of the team. However his latest results with the national soccer team of the 5 Netherlands, with more or less the same players as Louis van Gaal worked with, were not that successful. It seems obvious that a coach and his way of leadership can have great influence on the team individuals and their performance. It might even appear that not every leadership style is successful on every kind of group setting. The relationship between leadership and group cohesion has been described by a number of researchers (Carron, 1978; Gardner et al, 1996; Shields, 1997; Bredemeier & Bostrom, 1996; Widmeyer et al, 1993). Leadership and group cohesion are central to the development of many groups, the way leaders create and retain high levels of group cohesion can have a strong effect on the way a group performs. Previous research investigated the relationship between leadership behaviour and group cohesion in several different contexts, such as the military context (Bartone & Kirkland, 1991), therapeutic context (Antonuccio et al, 1987) and the organizational context (Podsakoff & Todor). The latter two studies confirm that both consideration and initiating structure leadership behaviour facilitate group cohesion. Shields et al. (1997) provided support for the relationship between leadership and group cohesion in team sports. They found that high task cohesion is fostered by a leadership style that is strong in training and instruction, social support, democratic behaviour, positive feedback and avoids autocratic decision making. Furthermore Westre & Weiss (1991) and Pease & Kozub (1993) also found a positive relationship between leadership behaviour and task cohesion. The literature on group cohesion has provided general support for an effect of team cohesiveness on team performance (Widmeyer et al, 1993). However, according to Mullins (1996) cohesive groups will not necessarily always deliver higher productivity or quality. High levels of group cohesion might lead to increased effort being placed on the social interaction between group members at the expense of performance priorities. In contrast, Ellis and Dick (2003) believe that cohesive groups will generally outperform all others. Previous research (Shields, 1997; Carron et al, 1985; Ntoumanis & Agelonidis, 2004; Ramzaninezhad, 2009; Hoigraard et al; 2006) has mainly focused on highly interdependent team sports such as soccer, volleyball, baseball and softball.

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