The effect of leadership behaviors and effective communication skills of team captains on team cohesion from the perspective of football players

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of leadership style and communication skills exhibited by team captains on team cohesion. Although there are studies in the relevant national and international literature on the subject in various sports organizational structures, the number of studies examining the effect of team captains' leadership styles and effective communication skills on team cohesion is quite limited. For this reason, it has shown that this issue is a problem that needs to be investigated and made it necessary to conduct research on it. The population of this study consists of the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) 2nd League teams (39 teams), while the sample consists of the football players of a total of 19 teams in the TFF 2nd League White Group. The sample group consisted of 324 football players selected according to the random sampling method from the defined population. In the collection of research data; "Leadership for Sport Scale (LSS)" developed by Chelladurai and Saleh (1980) and adapted into Turkish by Unutmaz and Gencer (2012), "Team Cohesiveness Inventory" developed by Carron, Widmeyer and Brawley (1985) and translated into Turkish by Unutmaz, Kiremitçi and Gençer (2011); "Effective Communication Scale in Team Sports" developed by Sullivan and Feltz (2003) and adapted into Turkish by Alkan (2009) was drawing on. Frequency, Cronbach Alpha reliability analysis, Anova, Pearson correlation and regression mediation analyses were used as statistical analyses in the study. As a result of the analyzes, it was determined that the scales were highly reliable. It was determined that 30.2% of the participants were between the ages of 25-29, 33.3% were midfielders, 69.8% were high school graduates, and 29.9% had played football for 1-3 years. In addition, positive and statistically significant relationships were found between leadership in sport and effective communication and between leadership in sport and team unity. Finally, according to the mediation analysis, it was determined that effective communication has a partial mediating role in the relationship between leadership in sport and team cohesion. As a result, it can be said that effective communication has an important role in ensuring team cohesion. In addition, it was seen that the formation of effective communication and effective team cohesion is directly proportional to the existence of an effective leader.