ABSTRACT
There has been a growing appreciation for the importance of effective leadership within sport governance. As the industry continues to evolve, it requires the need for effective leadership at many levels but especially at the upper echelons of governance. Although leadership and management in general have long been associated with each other, leadership and governance have seldomly been explored simultaneously. Soucie (1994) suggested that leadership pervades all the managerial activities of the sport administrator. This is clearly based on everyday practical examples within the sport industry where leaders are required to plan, organise, control, delegate and empower others to achieve organisational objectives as effectively and efficiently as possible. But little has been known about the inner workings of sport boards, thus potentially giving rise to this lack of exploration of the leadership issue within these settings. Given the repeated high-profile examples of “poor” leadership in the sport governance environment reported via the media (e.g., Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), International Olympic Committee (IOC), National Collegiate Athletic Association, etc.), it is even more surprising that this stream of research has not received more attention.
