How many leaders does it take to lead a sports team? The relationship between the number of leaders and the effectiveness of professional sports teams.

This study aimed to analyze the number of task, social and external athlete leaders within sports teams, and to examine the effectiveness of different leadership structures in male and female teams. The participants were 317 male and 214 female soccer players belonging to 18 teams playing in the third highest male division and to 13 teams playing in the highest female division in Spain, respectively. First, we identified the leadership structure in each team (i.e., having zero, one, two or three leaders); second, we grouped the teams according to these leadership structures; and third, MANOVA was used to compare different leadership groups in terms of their effectiveness. The results demonstrated that: (a) the most common structure within the teams was to have one task leader, one social leader, and two external leaders; (b) shared leadership across and within leadership roles was seen as the most effective leadership structure for male and female teams; and (c) male teams showed more benefits when having more task and external leaders, while female teams experienced more benefits when having more task and social leaders on the team. Based on these findings, coaches can optimize their team's functioning by implementing a structure of shared leadership within their teams, both across and within the different leadership roles.