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O'Reilly, Glenn (2025) An investigation into transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership styles and how they influence team culture in high-performance sports teams in Ireland. Masters thesis, Dublin, National College of Ireland.
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Abstract
Leadership plays an important role in shaping team culture and driving performance within high-performance sports teams in Ireland. High-performance teams rely on leaders who can create a positive, innovative, and cohesive culture. This entails leaders helping guide their team and athletes through their clear and strategic decision-making as well as setting an example for their athletes to follow, building trust and respect. Within Irish sport where factors such as tradition and community alignment are considered very important. Leaders must align these values with the demands and expectations that arise from high-performance sports environments. Leadership can form different areas within high-performance sports teams including managers, coaches, athletes or the wider backroom staff that assist the manager, they are all responsible in fostering a robust, positive culture within their environment which encourages strength during challenging times, teamwork and ongoing development in order to achieve success. This helps people within the environment work towards a shared objective, achieve success and ultimately perform at the highest level they are capable of.
This study will explore transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership styles and their influence on team culture within high-performance teams, focusing on factors such as collaboration, innovation, and adaptability. While existing research highlights the importance of leadership in creating a positive team culture as well as building trust, resilience, and alignment within teams in order to achieve success and performance within high-performance environments, gaps still remain in understanding how specific leadership styles influence cultural outcomes in high-performance sports environment, especially within the context of Ireland. This study will examine how transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership styles can influence team culture within high-performance sports teams in Ireland. This study will take the experiences of managers, players and support staff from sports such as Intercounty Gaelic Football and Hurling, Professional Rugby and Soccer into consideration with the aim of discovering key insights, recommendations and behaviours that foster a robust and positive team culture and performance. This research will employ a qualitative methodology, including semi-structured interviews which aims to identify leadership approaches that promote positive cultural outcomes and long-term success in high-pressure environments.
The study’s findings highlighted the major impact leadership style has on creating a high-performing environments. The research outlines the need of adopting adaptable, context-sensitive leadership approaches. Despite being restricted by a small sample size and time constraints, the results provide useful insights that may help support practical leadership strategies and enhance leadership development frameworks within Irish high-performance sport.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
|---|---|
| Supervisors: | Name Email Gibney, Desmond UNSPECIFIED |
| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HM Sociology > Leadership H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management > Human Resource Management > Leadership H Social Sciences > HM Sociology > Organisational Behaviour > Organisational Culture G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GV Recreation Leisure > Sports |
| Divisions: | School of Business (- 2025) > Master of Business Administration |
| Depositing User: | Tamara Malone |
| Date Deposited: | 15 Jan 2026 10:11 |
| Last Modified: | 15 Jan 2026 10:11 |
| URI: | https://norma.ncirl.ie/id/eprint/9104 |
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