Introduction: The emergence of leadership derives from the beginning of humans social life. In athletic situations, the coach is responsible for this role and has to guide and lead the players. With respect to this idea that athletes and coaches are always coordinating and can be influenced by each other, athletes’ commitment is on of the variables that can be influenced by the coach’s leadership behavior. In study conducted by Norouzi Seyyed Hosseini et al. (2011), it was shown that coaches’ leadership behavior had an effect on athletic commitment. On the other hand, commitment is an element which leads to permanent and continuous participation in athletic activities. Hosseini et al. (2013) and Garcia et al. (2010) emphasize this fact found that motivation is significantly correlated with sport commitment.
Methodology: The method used in present study was descriptive and correlational. The target population was 858 volleyball players of Semnan province, among them 250 players were selected through random cluster sampling. Leadership Style Questionnaire (Cheladori and Saleh, 1980), Sport Commitment Questionnaire (Sconelan et al. 1993) and Sport Participation Motivation Questionnaire (Gill et al. 1983) were used for data collection. The data were analyzed using statistical practices of Pearson correlation and Structural Equation Modeling.
Results: The results showed that coaches’ leadership style had a significant influence on sport commitment and participation motivation. Sport commitment had also a significant impact on sport motivation. Finally, all fitting indexes of the model showed an acceptable and desirable fitting.
Discussion: The data of present study indicated the importance of the role of coaches’ leadership style on sport commitment and participation motivation. Hence, considering the situation and the skill level of the players, the leaders of athletic teams can designate appropriate style and try to take step in a way which leads to achieve the best results.