Relationships among coach burnout, coach behaviors, and athletes' psychological responses

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship among coach burnout, coaching behaviors, and athletes' psychological responses using Chelladurai's (1980, 1990) multidimensional model of leadership as a theoretical framework. Two questions were addressed: (a) Do coaches who vary in level of burnout differ in the behaviors athletes perceive they exhibit? (b) Are coaching behaviors related to athletes' enjoyment, perceived competence, anxiety, and burnout? A sample of 193 female soccer players and 15 head coaches of high school teams completed measures of the constructs of interest. Coaches higher in emotional exhaustion were perceived by their teams as providing less training and instruction and social support and making fewer autocratic and greater democratic decisions. For the second question, athletes' perceptions of greater training and instruction, social support, positive feedback, democratic decisions, and less autocratic style were related to more positive (i.e., perceived competence, enjoyment) and less negative (i.e., anxiety, burnout) psychological outcomes.