This study examines Olympic swimmers’ leadership preferences within high performance sport environments, addressing a notable gap in literature, as leadership research has predominantly focused on team sports contexts. Recent public and institutional scrutiny of coaching behaviours, safeguarding failures, and athlete welfare within elite swimming further highlight the importance of understanding athletes’ perspectives on leadership. Employing semi structured interviews with 15 Olympic swimmers and thematic analysis guided by Chelladurai's Multidimensional Model of Leadership, the research identified four central themes: (1) the critical role of trust and psychological safety within coach-athlete relationships; (2) athletes’ preference for collaborative leadership styles over autocratic approaches; (3) the significance of cohesive team cultures and effective interdisciplinary collaboration; and (4) the necessity for comprehensive feedback that clearly communicates the rationale behind training methods. The findings reveal that Olympic swimmers value emotionally intelligent and adaptable leadership, sensitive to their developmental stages and personal experiences. These insights contribute to ongoing debates on effective leadership practices within elite sport by foregrounding athletes’ lived experiences of leadership within Olympic swimming. Collectively, these themes offer an interpretive account of how Olympic swimmers make sense of leadership through relational, emotional, and cognitive experiences, highlighting aspects of leadership that athletes themselves consider central within contemporary high-performance swimming environments. Practically, coach education should embed clear rationale-sharing and emotionally intelligent, collaborative practices to protect athlete welfare while sustaining performance. Carrying out this study in the period surrounding Paris 2024 situates these preferences within contemporary high-performance systems.
Ferguson et al. (Thu,) studied this question.