Abstract

Background: Football accounts for 43% of the sports market share, more than any other single sport. The pressure and stress associated with being a sports leader indicate that the football coaches encounter and work with occupational stress more regularly than corporate leaders. Hence, football coaches appear to be highly appropriate to acquire insights from. Although there is extensive literature on stress, the research on football coaches is lacking.

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to deepen the understanding of leading in a stressful environment. The aim is to acquire useful insights into various existing stress coping methods that reduce the negative impact that stress may have on contemporary leaders.

Method: The interpretivism paradigm is applied to this research as well as an abductive approach to grounded theory. The research is based on a single case study where primary data is acquired through semi-structured interviews with three football coaches and three players. Furthermore, the thematic analysis approach is applied when analyzing the data in order to draw applicable conclusions.

Results: The empirical findings suggest that there is a relationship between football coaches and their players. Furthermore, leading in the football environment is vastly shaped by this, however: industry specific stressors also play a significant role, such as management turnover. Several stress coping methods are identified in this study. The most prominent propel mentality, focus on progress and love for the sport, referred to as mental disengagement. This study is useful since it contributes with valuable insights of how leaders can efficiently cope with stress and lead in stressful environments.