The leadership academy: Evaluating the effectiveness of an adolescent leadership development program

Abstract

Past research indicates that high school coaches believe poor leadership skills is one of the greatest problems they face when working with their athletes. Conversely, former high school athletes have expressed interest in the opportunity to have their leadership skills developed through programming while in high school. To address this need, professionals who work with high school athletes have made a strong push to create and implement leadership development programmes in recent years. The current study adds to this growing body of literature surrounding leadership programmes with high school student-athletes through providing empirical, outcome data to support the effectiveness of a leadership development programme at high school level. Specifically, the current study collected data on self-reported general self- efficacy and peer sport leadership behaviour to evaluate a high school leadership programme – the Leadership Academy (N = 95). The Leadership Academy is in its third year of operation at a Midwest high school in the U.S. and consists of three tiers: (1) Beginning Leadership Academy, (2) Emerging Leadership Academy and (3) Advanced Leadership Academy. Within-group data analysis revealed a significant difference on both dependent variables (i.e., peer sport leadership, general self-efficacy) from pre-test to post-test for all three tiers of the Leadership Academy. Implications for professionals wanting to conduct their own leadership development programme with high school athletes and suggestions for future research are discussed.