Group Dynamic in Handball Teams – the Importance of Intellectual Abilities or How to become the Informal Leader

To be popular in a group or in a sports team can be important, but to be rejected must be avoided. Most functional groups and teams have a leader, which can be designated by the coach (formal leader) or elected by the team members (informal leader). The present research focused on identifying important cognitive abilities of the informal leader in the case of preadolescent handball players grouped, after performing a sociometric assessment in terms of the sport-related competence, in three categories: “popular”, “neglected/ controversial” and “rejected”. Knowing cognitive dimensions specific to athletes who score high for the preferential status index (PSI) after performing a sociometric assessment, we could be able to intervene, facilitating the social integration of the rejected or neglected/ controversial athletes in sports teams. 60 female handball players, from four handball teams from Romania, participated at the study. Each team comprised 15 athletes and represented the „reference group“, within which status was determined. The cognitive dimensions explored through our study were the verbal and nonverbal intelligence and the topographical memory. In the case of the preadolescent athletes (subsequent to the application of one-way ANOVA) significant differences were found between the results of the investigated groups (“popular”, “neglected/ controversial” and “rejected”), for: topographical memory efficiency and verbal and nonverbal skills. The results emphasize important intellectual dimensions of the informal leader that may positively influence a successful social integration of the athletes in the team.