Percepción de liderazgo entre deportistas y entrenadores de natación

Introduction: In recent decades, sports psychology has increased its interest in leadership due to its impact on the performance of teams and athletes. Objective: To determine the leadership perceived by swimmers and swimming coaches in Boyacá, Colombia. Methodology: A non-experimental quantitative descriptive design was applied with a non-probabilistic sample of 110 swimmers and 12 coaches. The Leadership Scale for Sport was used in versions LSS-2 and LSS-3. Results: No significant differences were found between coaches' self-perceptions and swimmers' perceptions of overall leadership or its dimensions. The personal characteristics of the coaches were not related to their styles. Among the athletes, males exhibited more democratic behavior (p = 0.047), and international-level swimmers perceived more social support (p = 0.004) and positive feedback (p = 0.011). Discussion: The results confirmed the congruence between self-perception and external perception, which is consistent with the Multidimensional Leadership Model and previous studies on the predominance of feedback and training. However, they differed in the absence of influence from personal variables of coaches and in the effect of gender and competitive level, in line with some studies and in contrast to others. Conclusions: Consistency in perceptions was evident, and the relevance of gender and competitive level in the perception of leadership was identified.