The Role of Coaches’ Leadership Styles in Success Motivation and Commitment of Elite Wrestlers in Iran

The aim of this study was the role of leadership style of coaches in success motivation and commitment of elite wrestlers in Iran using the structural equation model. This research was application in terms of aims and correlation in terms of strategy. The statistical population consisted of all wrestlers present in the national team (N=156). The Leadership Style Questionnaire of Chelladurai (1980), the Success Motivation Questionnaire of Roberts and Treasure (1998) and the Sport Commitment Questionnaire of Scanlan et al. (1993) were used to collect data. The combined reliability of the questionnaires was 0.774, 0.70, 0.81 respectively. Descriptive and inferential statistics such as Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and structural equation model were used to analyze the data. The results showed that the impact factor of coaches’ training and instruction leadership style was significant in success motivation (0.579) and commitment (0.587); their autocratic style was significant in success motivation (0.684) and commitment (0.701) and their democratic style was significant in success motivation (0.844) and commitment (0.836) at (α=0.05). Therefore, it can be said that the mentioned leadership styles have a positive and significant effect on wrestlers’ success motivation and sport commitment.