Recreational Leadership Essay

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A CONCEPTUAL STUDY ON RECREATIONAL LEADERSHIP Onur Çakır School of Tourism and Hospitality Management Anadolu University, Turkey E-mail: onurcakyr@yahoo.co.uk & Meryem Akoğlan Kozak School of Tourism and Hospitality Management Anadolu University, Turkey E-mail: mkozak@anadolu.edu.tr Abstract During the 20th century, recreation has become a major service industry that offers wide-range and diversified activities for people who want to make good use of their leisure time. Also there has been a need for individuals that would form, plan, manage and lead these recreation activities. These individuals are called recreational leaders. This study aims to provide a recreational leadership model by analyzing well known leadership models and theories and factors that are unique to the recreation field. After a comprehensive review of the literature and the factors that are unique to recreation field following results have been reached. Recreational leaders should have the ability to recognize and adapt social, economic and psychological changes before their participants and they need to evaluate their own personality and traits, participants’ characteristics and status, location of the activity, their position in the organization before they decide on a leadership style. Introduction Parallel to the developments in the field of industry and technology, the use of free time to create personal and social happiness has become a necessity. So that, in today’s modern societies, the form of recreation activities is seen as a welfare indicator such as safety, income per capita and health. For this reason, the importance given to recreation activities, which enable individuals to renew themselves to carry out their daily duties and responsibilities and provide them personal satisfaction and joy, is increasing day by day. Meeting the recreation needs of the
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