Promoting the leadership of team captains in sports contexts: The Pro●Captains Program

Abstract

Athlete leadership is crucial for optimizing the functioning of sports teams. In order to do so, athletes need to be provided with opportunities to develop their leadership skills, particularly team captains. This paper proposes the Pro.Captains Program based on the Leadership Efficacy Model (Gomes, 2020). The program includes six stages: (1) pre-intervention evaluation; (2) selecting team captains; (3) challenges of team captains; (4) behaviors of team captains; (5) leadership plan of team captains; and (6) post-intervention evaluation. The ProCaptains Program can be tested in terms of efficacy and offers a practical framework for stakeholders interested in developing the leadership of team captains.