The effects of coaches? charismatic leadership characteristics on team cohesion according to basketball players

The aim of this study is to evaluate the effects of the charismatic leadership characteristics of coaches - as perceived by the players - on ?team cohesiveness?. The subjects of the study consist of 553 basketball players and coaches working for 52 teams playing in the following leagues of Turkish Basketball Federation during 2010 ? 2011 season: Beko Basketball League, Turkish Women?s Basketball League (TWBL), Turkish 2nd Basketball League (TB2L), Turkish Women?s Basketball 2nd League (TWB2L), Men?s Basketball Local League (MBLL). The instruments used in the study are ?Charismatic Leadership Questionnaire? and ?Group Enviroment Questionnaire?. The first one, namely ?Charismatic Leadership Questionnaire?, was developed for the purposes of this study and includes 8 factors and 35 items. According to explanatory factor analysis, 3 factors of ?Group Enviroment Questionnaire? were used. SPSS 18.0 and LISREL 8.80 software programs were applied for the statistical analyses. For data analysis procedures the following analyses were used: frequency tables for demographic characteristics, reliability tests (Cronbach Alpha), correlation analysis, t-test, one-way anova analysis, explanatory and confirmatory factor analysis.The results obtained from the study show that the relationship between ?Risk Taking for the Value? and ?Impresiveness? is realized through ?Motivating Communication?. The relationship between ?Unusual Appearance?, and ?Attraction to group ?task? and ?Group integration- social? is realized through ?Antipathetic Perception?. On the other hand, a negative relationship was found between ?Antipathetic Perception? and ?Attraction to group -task? and ?Group integration social?. The results suggest that the relationship between ?Personalized Interest? and ?Group integration- task?, ?Group integration - social? and ?Attraction to group ?task? can be realized through ?Trust?. It is also found that ?Personality? has a negative relationship with ?Trust?. The results obtained from this study are expected to contribute to the attempts by coaches of other team sports even other than basketball to create a positive atmosphere in the teams and to ensure team cohesion.Key Words: Charisma, Charismatic Leadership, Charismatic Leadership Theories, Group Cohesiveness, Structural Equation Models.