Swedish researchers create tool to measure toxic coaching in elite sports
Researchers have validated a 15-item assessment that identifies toxic leadership behaviors among sports coaches and team leaders. The tool could help sports organizations, federations, and talent development programs spot harmful coaching practices before they damage athlete wellbeing and performance—a growing concern as youth athletic programs expand globally.
Originaltitel: Assessing toxic leadership in high-performance sports: Psychometric validation of a Swedish Version of the Toxic Leadership Scale for Sports (TLS-S)
This study evaluated the internal consistency and factorial validity of a sport-adjusted 15-item version of the Toxic Leadership Scale (TLS-S). The sample consisted of 189 Swedish elite team sport athletes (56 females, 132 males, 1 preferred not to disclose; mean age = 17.9 years, SD = 3.3) from 21 different teams (ice hockey n = 68; soccer n = 60; American football n = 26; basketball n = 15; handball n = 14; volleyball n = 3; other team sports not specified or multiple sports n = 3). Participants competed at different performance levels: sub-elite (n = 15), national junior elite (n = 105), international junior elite (n = 26), national senior elite (n = 30), international senior elite (n = 12), and other not specified (n = 1). Results showed adequate internal consistency (ωt > .70) for the total TLS-S score and all subscales except the authoritarian leadership subscale (ωt = .61). Confirmatory factor analysis indicated acceptable model fit for both a five-factor and a one-factor model. While the five-factor model (χ²(80)=135.87, p < .001; CFI = .98; RMSEA = .062 [90% CI: .044-.080]; SRMR = .044) was superior to the one-factor solution (difference test: χ²(10)=53.60, p < .001), intercorrelations across subscales were high (range: .73-.92). A bifactor model supported a unidimensional structure (explained common variance = .79; percentage of uncontaminated correlations = .86). The findings provide psychometric evidence for the TLS-S and support a unidimensional structure. This study constitutes an important initial step toward facilitating the quantitative assessment of toxic leadership within sport environments, with the TLS-S emerging as a promising instrument for this purpose.