Anthony S. Griffo, Mark Eys

Expressed leader humility in the organizational context is defined as an observable “interpersonal characteristic that emerges in social contexts and connotes a willingness to view oneself accurately, an appreciation of others’ strengths and contributions, and teachability” (Owens & Hekman, 2016, p. 1088). Considering the potential importance of the behavioural indicators associated with humility in sport, Griffo and Eys (2026) investigated the construct with an existing conceptualization and global measure (Kelemen et al., 2022), and provided initial evidence that coach humility promotes task and social cohesion indirectly via collective humility (i.e., the group expression of the indicators associated with humility). However, several boundary conditions were identified during the study including a lack of conceptual clarity, which contributed to the unidimensional operationalization and potential threats to discriminant validity. These limitations suggest that coach and collective humility should be re-examined with contextual specificity to sport. As such, the purpose of the proposed study is to provide a conceptualization and working definition of coach and collective humility in the sport context, guided by the research question “how are coach and collective humility experienced in the sport context?” Approximately 12 coaches and 12 athletes will be invited to participate in semi-structured interviews. Interview data will be transcribed and analyzed using codebook template analysis (King et al., 2017). The results from this proposed study will provide a stronger foundation for future inquiry into coach and collective humility as well as enhance understanding of how they are experienced in the sport context and their potential outcomes.