Loneliness at the top, its antecedents, and coping mechanisms in the sports sector

Given the increasing importance of sports clubs and the leaders in the sports sector, exploring the factors related to the loneliness of sports leaders has been an essential research topic. However, studies investigating the leaders in the sports sector have generally gathered information from amateur organizations and neglected professional clubs. This research aims to fill this gap by exploring leaders' loneliness in professional sports clubs with the study conducted in Turkey. After briefly presenting the topic's importance and three case studies, the following chapters examine in depth how top executives experienced loneliness at the top in professional team sports. By conducting in-depth interviews with the top executives of professional sports clubs in Turkey, the extent of loneliness at the top, its roots and coping mechanisms are investigated. In the last chapter, the findings were integrated, inter-case analyses were conducted, and conclusions were drawn. By linking various research contexts and alternative approaches to the research question, our recognition of the main factors contributing to leaders' loneliness in professional sports clubs, such as public pressure and crisis situations, and coping mechanisms, such as paternalistic leadership, is advanced.