Conference "Relational Leadership Across Time"

Relational Leadership Across Time: Authority, Guidance, and Development Guidance, Authority, and Development in Enduring Leadership Relationships

Conceptual Scope

 The coach–athlete relationship constitutes a significant focus of scholarly inquiry within the literature on leadership, long-term effectiveness, and the psychosocial foundations of development in elite sport. From a scientific perspective, this relationship is conceptualized as a dynamic system of interactions in which processes of influence, responsibility, and behavioral regulation co-occur. Empirical research demonstrates that the quality of this relationship shapes not only performance outcomes, but also motivational stability, psychological well-being, and sustained engagement across extended career trajectories.

 The purpose of the conference is to foster an interdisciplinary reflection on long-term leadership and developmental relationships characterized by asymmetries of roles, responsibility, and access to decision-making resources. Particular attention will be given to diverse forms of leadership and their evolution over time—ranging from models grounded in cooperation and agency, through mentoring and guiding relationships, to structures based on control, hierarchy, and institutional authority. This perspective enables the conceptualization of leadership relationships as a universal regulatory mechanism shaping the development of individuals and teams across sport, organizations, education, business, and the public sector.

 Conference Aim

 The conference aims to provide a multidimensional analysis of long-term leadership and developmental relationships in which one party assumes the role of a leader, mentor, or guide, while the other engages in processes of competence development, autonomy building, and professional identity formation. Particular attention will be devoted to the evolution of roles, leadership styles, and power dynamics over time—ranging from models grounded in partnership and shared responsibility, through mentoring and guiding relationships, to tensions arising from authoritarianism, control, and hierarchical decision-making structures. Within this framework, elite sport serves as a critical point of reference for a broader reflection on leadership mechanisms that are equally present in organizations, business, education, and the public sector.

  Indicative Areas

 We invite submissions of papers and presentations addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:

•                 long-term developmental relationships in high-performance and high-demand contexts

•                 leadership styles and their implications for effectiveness, well-being, and sustained engagement

•                 the evolution of roles and power asymmetries in leader–follower, mentor–mentee, and supervisor–employee relationships

•                 trust, autonomy, and mechanisms of control in developmental and learning processes

•                 conflicts, relational crises, and strategies for their regulation within leadership relationships

•                 mentoring leadership and the role of the guide in personal and professional development

•                 analogies between leadership relationships in sport and those observed in organizational and business contexts

•                 the transfer of leadership models developed in sport to management and organizational practice

•                 ethical boundaries of leadership influence, leader responsibility, and the misuse of power

 Interdisciplinarity

 The conference is interdisciplinary in nature and welcomes scholars and practitioners from fields including, but not limited to, sport psychology, management sciences, leadership studies, pedagogy, sociology, ethics, coaching, and human resource management.

 Publication

Selected papers, following a full peer-review process, will be published in a special issue of the Journal of Leadership in Sport and Management.