This study sought to promote a construct validation of Chelladurai and Saleh’s Leadership Scale for Sports (1978, 1980), version preference of leadership, with data from 706 male and female Brazilian athletes in soccer, judo, swimming and athletics. The survey participants were from various sport clubs of Rio Grande do Sul; also in an attempt to produce a validation criterion for the instrument relations between the preference for leadership of the athletes and the dependence and variability of task, gender and age of the athletes were tested, as prescribed in the Multidimensional Model of Leadership for Sport. The responses of the athletes to the instrument were processed through the SPSS Factor Analysis, Cronbach alpha and MANOVA. In general, the results provided reasonable confirmation to the original structure. However, the reliability of the autocratic behavior subscale fell short of acceptable. In the discussion, suggestions are made for the reformulation of some items.
Sport psychology; Leadership; Psychological assessment; Test validity
