Abstract

• The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the leadership style of coaches and the competitive anxiety of elite athletes of the Myanmar National Sports Team before the 31st SEA GAMES. This study also attempts to identify the leadership styles of coaches and to describe the competitive anxiety level of athletes in the Myanmar National Sports Team. Participants were 105 elite athletes from the Myanmar National Sports Team. Participants completed a battery of questionnaires, including Leadership Scale for Sports (LSS) developed by Chelladuria and Saleh (1990), the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2) introduced by Martens et al. (1990b), and the demographic variables. The results of the descriptive analyses most of the participants perceived their coaches from Myanmar National Sports Team have the tendency to engage in training/instruction behavior, positive feedback behavior and democratic behavior of leadership style. Additionally, most of the elite athletes reported significantly low levels of both cognitive and somatic anxiety and high level of self-confidence. Further, the results of the multiple regression analyses reveled that a coach’s training/instruction behavior decreased athletes’ cognitive anxiety levels, and autocratic behavior and social support behavior increased athletes’ cognitive anxiety levels. The coaches’ autocratic behavior and democratic behavior also increased athletes’ somatic anxiety. However, the research findings indicated that the positive impact on athletes' self confidence from coaching behaviors such as training, instruction, social support, and positive feedback, as well as the negative effects resulting from autocratic and democratic behaviors, did not reach statistical significance. The current study has important implications and practical assistance to sports coaches, athletes, sports psychologists, and coaching education.