Leadership Potential Among Students Of The Faculty Of Physical Education And Sport

Abstract

Consideration of leadership as a set of intellectual abilities, personal qualities, value orientations, behavioral patterns and functional competencies being a condition for a person’s success in all spheres of life is currently actualized in many humanitarian scientific disciplines. The article considers the phenomenon of leadership potential, gives a comparative analysis of its definitions and generalize approaches to the structure of this phenomenon based on the theoretical provisions of the problem of leadership. The actualization of leadership potential for pedagogical science is obvious since student age is characterized by maximum ambition, social activity and mobility, sufficient intellectual potential and high motivation for success. For students of the Faculty of Physical Culture and Sports, the development of leadership potential is relevant not only from the standpoint of present and future personal achievements in life and in sports but also from the standpoint of future coaching or pedagogical activities. The empirical research is based on the author’s conclusions of theoretical analysis. Thus, the article proves that leadership potential is a latent personal neoformation and may or may not manifest itself at the behavioral level depending on social and professional conditions, as well as personal value and motivational attitudes. For the manifestation of the leadership potential of students, it is necessary to create special conditions, which involve student sports being a test for determination, will, confidence, etc. The article examines the content and essence of the social phenomenon “student sport”, substantiates its exceptional resources for the development of leadership potential among students.

Keywords: Phenomenon, leadership, resources, potential, physical education, sports

Introduction

In recent years, the attention of the scientific community to the phenomenon of leadership has changed the vector of interest from the study of leadership as a socio-psychological phenomenon to the study of leadership as a complex of personal qualities that ensure personal and group effectiveness and the success of professional and daily life. Leadership as a scientific problem is one of the academic problems. Almost all scientific disciplines: psychology, philosophy, sociology attempt to solve it. At the same time, most of the works are devoted specifically to the socio-psychological aspect of considering this problem and, to a lesser extent, to the consideration of leadership as a personal phenomenon.

As Kaminskaya et al. (2019) emphasize, in modern studies, leadership is considered as qualitative characteristics of a person enabling to achieve success in any area of life, lead people, and solve tasks with a high degree of efficiency. According to these authors, the high scientific interest in the problem of leadership today is dictated by the practical need of society for effective leaders who are ready to solve any problems in non-standard situations.

Problem Statement

Therefore, the task of updating the leadership potential during education and professional training of the future generation is an urgent pedagogical task. The task of updating the leadership potential of students of the Faculty of Physical Culture and Sports is dictated by the need to develop leadership qualities among students while studying not only for their manifestation in sports activities and in the pursuit of high achievements, but also for future professional activities being sports, pedagogical, teaching or coaching.

Today, training at the Faculty of Physical Culture and Sports of Nizhnevartovsk State University, is implemented at three levels of professional education. Faculty graduates carry out professional activities in various fields related to sports including teaching and coaching. It goes without saying that only a teacher who demonstrates leadership qualities can achieve high results, has a persistent motivation for achievement, and is able to build the same qualities in his trainees.

Consequently, the solution to the problem of actualizing the leadership potential among students of the Faculty of Physical Culture and Sports, as future specialists, has a prognostic character and is aimed at strategic training of graduates for the upbringing and development of leadership qualities in their future students. At the same time, in the modern literature, issues concerning the analysis of those factors and conditions that contribute to the manifestation of leadership potential are insufficiently considered.

Research Questions

It is necessary to clarify the content of the concept of “leadership potential”. Despite the fact that in modern scientific and popular literature this concept is becoming more and more popular and commonly used and the clear and unambiguous definitions of this concept are still lacking. For the most part, when defining “leadership potential”, researchers start from the structural content including the keywords “readiness” and “presence” as potential categories that provide behavioral manifestations of leadership under certain situations and conditions.

Analysis of the concept of “leadership potential” draws attention to the semantic load of the “potential” as a possible manifestation under appropriate conditions. Thus, in the works, the following definitions of the concept of leadership potential can be found: systemic, integrative personal quality, combining intellectual, motivational, emotional-volitional, value characteristics, including abilities, internal needs and aspirations of a person, skills and competencies which in aggregate provide behavior and successful life activity (Gunicheva, 2007); personality characteristic qualitatively representing a system of internal needs, life-meaning orientations, value attitudes and relationships that ensure the formation of a certain level of integration of competence, responsibility, activity and communication of the individual, the totality of which leads to a leading position in the group, providing an opportunity to influence the group members with a joint approach to solving problems in various situations of life and work (Drygina, 2004); personal education, including a set of psychological characteristics, personality traits and competencies, operational skills and abilities that enable a person who possesses them to successfully implement leadership functions (Kaminskaya et al., 2019); more complex education than the aggregate set of certain personality traits, characteristics and qualities. Against the background of the absence of a single list of leadership qualities, despite a significant number of works in this direction, leadership potential should include intelligence, optimism, self-confidence, will, ambition and flexibility, which can provide a person with the leadership qualities (Drozdov, 2017); a set of leadership qualities of an individual, conditions for their manifestation, peculiarities of perception by group members, which provide an opportunity to take leadership positions and use leadership resources in organization and management (Evtikhov, 2007).

Understanding the content of this concept, presented in the works of researchers enables to make generalization.

First, leadership potential is a potential personality neoplasm that may or may not manifest itself at the behavioral level.

Secondly, for a personality to manifest its leadership potential through leadership behavior, the implementation of leadership functions, certain conditions and situations are necessary.

Third, according to the theoretical analysis of the definition, many authors distinguish a number of different components in the structure of leadership potential, which, with a certain semantic variability, can be combined into a cognitive component including knowledge about organization and management, its general worldview against the background of the formed self-concept of a leader, image (self-image); a behavioral component including social, communicative, organizational competencies that ensure the effectiveness of activities and functioning; a socio-psychological component, which includes the personal characteristics of a leader providing him with the opportunity to lead, manage, inspire, motivate (self-confidence, charisma, authoritarianism, decisiveness, and others).

For example, the work of Kaminskaya et al. (2019) is devoted to a stressful situation as a mechanism, a determinant triggering the leadership potential at the behavioral level. We consider student sports as a social and educational phenomenon to be a set of conditions for the manifestation of leadership potential.

Purpose of the Study

The work aims to solve the problem of updating the leadership potential of students of the Faculty of Physical Culture and Sports, as future specialists, which is predictive in nature and is aimed at strategic training of graduates for the upbringing and development of leadership qualities in their future students.

Research Methods

Students, as a social group, are often the subject of research in pedagogical, psychological, sociological and philosophical scientific works due to representing a certain social, cultural and pedagogical interest. Thus, Zimnyaya (2004) emphasizes that age of student has a number of advantages for the formation and development of leadership personal potential, since it has a high educational level, cognitive motivation, motivation for self-development, self-actualization and self-realization. At the same time, age of student is characterized by the highest social activity and mobility, a sufficiently high level of intelligence and an almost completely formed social maturity.

Vorobieva and Shakhmatova (2006) also argue that the educational space created at a university has all the necessary resources for a targeted, directed and controlled development of the leadership potential of students. Leadership potential is represented by the following constituents: informational, cultural, leisure, educational, social, and other ones.

Zhdanova and Kruzhkova (2015) believe that a higher professional educational institution is a necessary and sufficient platform for educating the leadership potential of students through the active genesis of leadership qualities, organizational and managerial skills in the system of social and professional education and upbringing, instilling a culture of interpersonal interaction.

According to Zorina (2009), in order to avoid social and psychological deformation when entering a student community, the process of progressive development of the leadership qualities must be controlled and directed by teaching staff in the social and educational environment.

It is worth noting that sport as a condition, mechanism, environment for the development of leadership qualities among students in the process of playing sports has a sufficient theoretical basis in Russian scientific literature (Andryushchenko & Orlan, 2002; Grebenyuk & Karakoch, 2013; Grigoriev et al., 2013; Kostromin & Rudenko, 2014 and others).

At the same time, as Drozdov (2017) emphasizes, in most works, leadership potential is considered contextually, in an incomplete volume, mainly from the standpoint of the development of volitional, moral or moral-volitional qualities.

Referring to the literary sources and the content of “leadership potential” concept, we made a preliminary conclusion that the qualities of a leader are potential, that is, they can manifest themselves under certain conditions. Thus, in the studies of Lotonenko and Struk (2004), it was proved that the effectiveness of a leader is determined by the combination and interaction of situational factors and the chosen line of behavior. Specifically, if the manifested leadership qualities of a person in joint activities meet the requirements of the situation and lead to an obvious result, then such behavior is denoted as leadership.

Drozdov (2017) proves that sports and sports activities have a full range of resources for the formation, development and manifestation of leadership potential, since such a variety of situations (training, preparing a team for competitions, direct competitions, etc.) are inherent in sports, which enable to experience joy, excitement, stress, frustration in joint activities, which require a fast decision and strategic, predictive planning.

According to the author, sports and life devoted to sports are becoming a kind of “training ground” that raises, trains and tempers the leader (Drozdov, 2017).

“Sport is becoming the activity where the foundations of leadership potential are most successfully laid,” says Bykhovskaya (2014, p. 51). The author argues that sport consistently holds leading positions among the dominant phenomena of the modern world by the rate of its massive invasion, by the scale of distribution, by the number and variety of “target groups”. There is a well-known expression proven repeatedly in empirical research on leadership issues that “people who do not go in for sports have substantially lower leadership qualities than athletes” (Gogunov & Martyanov, 2000).

Despite the fact that the educational process of higher professional education has a certain experience and developed technologies of leadership training, at the same time, the system of sports education does not take into account all the possibilities for the development of the leadership potential of students.

It is obvious that sports activity, educational and training sessions, sports and physical exercises, general physical training and other types of activities of students during the period of study contribute to the development of skills to maintain self-control, work capacity, regulate and control the emotional state, rationally assess personal capabilities, quickly adapt to changing conditions of activity, and the development of such personal qualities characteristic of leaders as activity, dedication, involvement, decisiveness, independence, responsibility and others.

Consequently, we consider all types of activities combined and represented in such a social phenomenon as student sports to be the most optimal conditions for ensuring the development of leadership potential.

As a social phenomenon, student sports originated in the 19^th century. At the same time, its theoretical and methodological foundations were developed only at the end of the 20^th century and are presented in the work of Ilyinich (1999) “Physical culture of a student”. In his work, Ilyinich (1999) substantiated not only the theoretical and methodological foundations of student sports but also revealed its features such as: characteristic features of student sports, including age restrictions, the specifics of the organization, the specifics of educational work and everyday life; features and conditions of physical culture and sports in the educational process.

In modern conditions, student sports are enshrined in a normative way. For example, in the Federal Law No. 328-FZ “On Physical Culture and Sports in the Russian Federation” dated 04.12.2007, student sports are considered as a part of sports aimed at physical education and physical training of students in professional educational organizations and educational institutions of higher education, their preparation for participation in physical culture and sporting events, including official physical culture and sporting events (Clause 23.1 was introduced by the Federal Law of No. 384-FZ dated 03.12.2011 as amended by the Federal Law No. 185-FZ dated 02.07. 2013) (Federal Law..., 2011).

Of course, student sport has its own characteristics and, according to Mazov (2009, p. 29), it performs certain age-specific social functions, forms values and social status, which have their own interpretations not restricted by the general meaning of physical culture. The definition of the actual concept of “sport”, the isolation of its essence and definition in the system of sociological knowledge was proposed in the works of Egorov and Zakharov (2007). In the works of the authors, the social aspect of sport was proposed in the continuum of objective-subjective understanding; its meanings are developed at the macrolevel and microlevel.

Thus, at the macroobjective level, sport is understood as a social institution for improving the psychophysical and intellectual abilities of people. The macro-subjective level of understanding sports includes a common human culture, socially acceptable norms and values.

The microobjective level understands sport as a model of social interaction, predominantly a game model providing the implementation of health-improving, entertaining, competing, relaxing functions in society. This level of understanding sports corresponds to the public idea of sports as an attribute of life, as a socializing factor.

The microsubjective level of interpreting sport as a social phenomenon is represented by individual values and meanings that each person has with regards to the content of sport and the expected effect from it (Egorov & Zakharov, 2007).

The presented concept is not exhaustive in the sociological interpretation of sport as a social phenomenon. In many works, sport is also interpreted in a broader semantic meaning: from competitive activity and preparation for it to specific human interactions and relationships that require certain social norms of sports activity (Matveev, 1999; Ozolin, 1970; Platonov, 2005; Stolyarov, 2015, etc.).

The regulation on sport as a social phenomenon types and its varieties is important for its theoretical foundations. The most common in the foreign scientific community is the position proposed by Grum (1979, 1999), who highlights several types of sport. Elite sport characterized by the achievement of an absolute result, world recognition, monetary reward. It is this sport that most often becomes professional and commercial. Club sport is predominantly associated with pleasure, recreation, a convenient mode of exercise and training, a high degree of non-competitive communication. Recreational sports aim to improve health. Fitness sports are a popular way to achieve good physical shape. Extreme (adventure) sports aim at experiencing acute experiences, prone to risk. Tourist sports satisfy the entertainment and often cognitive needs of people. Cosmetic sports provide a good appearance by physical activity (Grum, 1979, 1999).

In the domestic literature, various classifications are also presented: “the main directions of the social practice of sports” (Matveev, 1999), “the main directions in the development of the sports movement” (Kholodov & Kuznetsov, 2002). The authors most often highlight mass sports (public, “sports for everyone”) and elite sports (big, record, professional).

Mass sports today include various types, such as school, student, recreational, disabled, conditioned, professionally applied. It is customary to refer to the sport of the highest achievements as professional, entertainment (commercial), achievement (Kuznetsov & Kholodov, 2002; Nikitushkin & Suslov, 2017).

Thus, student sports should be understood as a full-fledged sport. Significant discrepancies in the theory and practice of student sports were eliminated with the adoption of the Concept for the development of student sports in the Russian Federation in 2017 for the period up to 2025 ( The concept ..., 2017). This document identified the priority directions for the development of physical culture, sports and recreational activities in educational institutions of all levels, as well as the development of student sports in the Russian Federation as a whole.

Indeed, student sports in the context of the above-named varieties differ only in the specificity of the age target group and have been developing in the direction of both mass and professional sports. The educational space of the university including the sports space, creates all the necessary conditions for the development and manifestation of the leadership potential of students, personal self-realization, disclosure of all personal resources, and, above all, leadership potential. Thus, the educational space of the university has all the possibilities for the development of the leadership potential of students.

Findings

Diagnostic procedures that meet both the study objectives and the requirements of validity and reliability were selected for empirical research. The tasks of the empirical research included the following: determination of potential leadership qualities among students of the Faculty of Physical Culture and Sports; diagnostics and assessment of the degree of manifestation of leadership potential by students in the conditions of student sports.

Undoubtedly, the effectiveness of pedagogical influence and the implementation of organizational and pedagogical conditions for the development of the leadership potential of students depend on the quality of the diagnostic stage. Traditionally, at this stage, questionnaire methods of psychological and pedagogical diagnostics are used. The solution of another research problem requires an appeal to situational-behavioral diagnostics, which enables to obtain objective information not distorted by a person’s subjective self-image.

Situational and behavioral diagnostics was used in real sports as well as sports and educational activities of students, in situations simulated for leadership qualities manifestation. The results of the manifestation of leadership potential at the behavioral level in simulated situations were recorded by experts using the method of expert assessment.

Self-assessment of leadership qualities was carried out according to the methodology of Zharikov, Krushelnitsky. According to the method proposed by Zharikov and Krushelnitsky (as cited in Fetiskin et al., 2002), the students were offered 50 statements.

Self-assessment of the manifestation of leadership potential was diagnosed using the Leadership Effectiveness method (Nemov, 2001). The methodology included 40 questions; each answer was estimated at one point.

The manifestation of leadership potential at the behavioral level was assessed by experts and the rapid test “Factual level of leadership manifestation”, which included 10 judgments, in response to which the most appropriate option had to be chosen. This technique enables to determine the relevance of the manifestation of leadership potential in joint activities.

Table 1 shows the results of four tests from the standpoint of self-assessment and external expertise of the development of students’ leadership qualities and manifestation of leadership potential at the behavioral level.

As can be seen from the results of the empirical study, self-assessment of leadership potential turned out to be overestimated. At the same time, it is impossible to define its bias, since leadership potential is, in a certain sense, a latent personality quality and requires appropriate social, professional conditions for behavioral manifestation. At the same time, the external assessment of leadership qualities and leadership potential at the behavioral level practically do not differ from the standpoint of expert assessment and express test, which enables to trust the results obtained. Especially significant differences were obtained in assessing the low level of leadership potential. Thus, from the standpoint of students’ self-esteem, only 17% (in the first test) and 6% (in the second test) rated their level as low. However, from the standpoint of external expert assessment, a much higher number of respondents had a low level (37% and 39%).

Conclusion

According to many researchers, the manifestation of leadership qualities (if a person has these qualities or an inclination to leadership) depends on the development of organizational and communicative qualities. The development of these qualities, for example, according to Zhurova (2013), can be ensured by active participation in student sports, while improving the quality of management and improving the legal regulation of the student sports system; with the development of student self-government and the developed infrastructure of universities, material equipment.

As the results of the study have shown, today, despite the fact that the educational space of the university meets all the conditions for the development of student sports, the leadership potential of students is developing unevenly. Students of the Faculty of Physical Education and Sports defend the honor of the university at regional, Russian and international competitions. Students and graduates of the Faculty of Physical Culture and Sports are outstanding athletes. Among them are the winners and prize-winners of the World, European and Olympic Games championships. Many graduates have achieved significant success in the coaching field. At the same time, the development of student sports at the present stage in the context of the development of the leadership potential of students needs to increase the role of student self-government, reflection of personal leadership qualities by each student.

And in order to stay in the profession and be successful, a future teacher (trainer) in physical culture and sports must constantly update professional knowledge and skills, improve professional qualifications (Ibragimova & Kandaurova, 2019).

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