China Media Research, 14(1), 2018 http://www.chinamediaresearch.net Transformation of a Celebrity Athlete (Lang Ping): The Journey to Authentic Leadership in Women’s Sports Janice Hua Xu, Holy Family University, USA Abstract: Using a life stories approach to examine the career path of volleyball legend Lang Ping, this article analyzes how the “narrative self” is constructed in her growth into a transnational sports leader. Situated in China’s sports media culture, the article examines major components of authentic leadership development in her coaching career, including leader self-awareness/self-regulation, leadership practice/follower development, and sustained performance. While the media narratives around her success ranged from patriotism and professionalism to Olympic spirit over the decades, she has maintained a reflective perspective in her identity articulation and engaged in transformative leadership practice. The paper also discusses the implications of Lang Ping’s success for empowering women in the globalization of China’s sports system. [Janice Hua Xu Transformation of a Celebrity Athlete (Lang Ping): The Journey to Authentic Leadership in Women’s Sports. China Media Research 2018; 14(1):11-19.].2 Keywords: authentic leadership, narrative, Olympics, sports leadership, sports media culture, teambuilding, transformative leader Introduction Known as the “Iron Hammer,” Lang Ping was the brightest star of Chinese sports in the early 1980s, serving as a spiker with the Women’s Volleyball National Team. Lang Ping was the embodiment of the “Chinese women’s volleyball spirit” as she led her teammates to win a volleyball grand slam of Olympic Games, World Cup, and world championship. She was made a role model for young women by Chinese media, and her picture appeared on stamps and posters. The team’s victories were seen as the turning point in the revival of national pride and patriotism as China stepped out of the shadow of the Cultural Revolution (Brownell, 2008). Three decades later, Lang Ping is still a prominent figure in the sport – as a coach – since retiring from her athlete career in the 1980s. After working with the China and Italy teams, she became the head coach of the US National Team in 2005, and guided the team to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where the US team defeated China. The game drew 250 million television viewers in China alone and was attended by Chinese and US presidents, Hu Jintao and George W. Bush. She was criticized by some Chinese netizens as a “traitor” as the Chinese team finished with a bronze medal. Lang Ping responded by stating “I am just a professional coach.” In 2013 she became once again head coach of China women’s volleyball national team, rebuilding confidence in Chinese volleyball while coping with the restraints of the sports bureaucracy. Among the 24 teams in the FIVB World Championship she was the only female head coach. China won a gold medal in the 2015 FIVB Volleyball World Cup, and then a gold medal in Rio Olympics in 2016. Lang Ping became a national heroine again. She was the first person to win gold as both a player and a coach in Olympic Games and World Cup. http://www.chinamediaresearch.net Through researching media reports and her autobiographic materials, the paper conducts an empirical study of how a female role model leads by being “the true self” (Luthans & Aviolio, 2003; Sparrowe, 2005) and navigates through various media representations and organizational barriers in China’s sports culture. An examination of her resilience in the path to become an inspiring transformative leader will hopefully enlighten more women in their own authentic leadership development. Justification/Rationale International Sports--Tensions between Globalism and Localism Mediated sports reflect broader social structures and reproduce the dominant values of a society, while capable of bringing social change (Hogan, 2003). Sports activities and spectatorship are influenced by politics and economy, constituting cultural milieus with meanings far beyond entertainment and recreation. In particular, the Olympics narrative serves not only as an affirmation of the national identity of the host, but also as an extended advertisement for the country and an opportunity to promote tourism, international corporate investment, trade, and political ideologies. Discourses of national identity are constantly shifting and constantly shaping and being reshaped by changing social conditions. Sporting medals, festivals, rituals, and grand spectacle offer excellent opportunities to showcase the growing economic power of a rising nation claiming its rightful place in the world. These sports events can be seen as “vortex of individual effort, civic pride, national sentiment, and global fellowship” with massing of athletes, spectators, media, and commercial interests (Kelly& Brownell, 2011). The dynamic media-sports-cultural complex (Hutchins 11 editor@chinamediaresearch.net China Media Research, 14(1), 2018 &Rowe, 2012) should be examined in the context of national, transnational, and global social structures and relations. While international sports mega-events embody the force of globalization, their cultural and political dynamics have created perceived threats to domestic cultures, which in turn have sparked vigorous assertions of national identity in locations around the globe. “The modern Olympic Games, as both a product and promoter of economic, cultural, and political globalization, exemplify tensions between globalism and localism and provide fertile ground for articulations of national identity” (Hogan, 2003). Tomlinson states that the Olympics offer “a revealing basis for the comprehension of the complexities characteristic of the cultural expression of the persisting crises of modernity and globalization” (1996:601). Specifically, the problem of simultaneously emphasizing and downplaying national particularities is usually at the core of the mosthighlighted elements of the sports mega-event (Hogan, 2003). At the individual level, those who become icons of sports victories are simultaneously representing their own nations and the international sport. For players and coaches like Lang Ping, their strive for excellence in performance is not only associated with the pride of the national identity, but also the universal “Olympic spirit,” which highlights the universality and diversity of human culture, as stated in the Olympic Charter. To be an influential sports leader, one needs to possess qualities that could enable his/her group to achieve greatness acknowledged beyond one’s nation of origin. Globalization and Sports Culture in China In China, the sport governance system has been transforming from a huge state-run enterprise to become more self-sufficient since the 1980s. The State Sports Commission was restructured to become the State General Administration of Sport in 1998, but the governments at all levels still have extensive control of sport operations. The State General Administration of Sports (SGAS) is an administrative unit under the State Council, closely tied to the All-China Sports Federation and the Chinese Olympic Committee. It is responsible for functions such as creating a national sport framework, organizing national sporting events and international sport events in China (Li, MacIntosh, & Bravo, 2012). China’s engagement with international sports mega-events such as the Olympics has been always shaped by political circumstances. After the People’s Republic of China’s seat in the International Olympic Committee Assembly was restored in1979, “break out of Asia and advance on the world,” a slogan of the Chinese diving team in 1980, soon became the guideline of the Chinese sports community (Dong, 2003). Though http://www.chinamediaresearch.net http://www.chinamediaresearch.net China won in table tennis competitions, table tennis was seen as a Chinese sport. With coaching methods borrowed from Japan, women’s volleyball became the first “big ball” sport in which China prevailed internationally. A championship victory against the US team in the Los Angeles Olympics led to a media frenzy when television entered Chinese households as a popular medium. The economic boom since the 1990s enabled new talent development programs and training facilities focusing on specific sports to increase winning chances. Later, in preparation for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, more than 30,000 athletes were training full time, five times more than the number who would actually compete. The official media highlighted medalwinning athletes as representatives of national pride, confidence, and identity. While globalization brought in foreign coaches, commercial sponsorship and international mobility for athletes, which challenged the centralized management system, the general view is that the changes actually created more space for the expression of collective national pride. It also allowed more flexibility for athletes to pursue their personal goals. Burgeoning Sports Leaders? The selection and training of future elite athletes in China traditionally start at an early age through an extensive system of spare-time sport schools. These sport boarding schools built in the Soviet model serve as a reserve pool for elite sport teams at the provincial and national levels. Around 400,000 students were enrolled in sports schools in 2005. The top portion joins provincial and national teams or competes in the Olympics after years of arduous training, but most graduates leave sports with insufficient academic skills or job preparedness. As graduates no longer get secured “iron rice bowl” job positions, many schools face declining enrollment demand from families seeking upward social mobility routes for their only child. In 2010, there were 2112 schools in the nation, a decrease from 3687 in 1990 (Sinonet, 2012). China Sports Daily estimates that 80 percent of China’s retired athletes suffer from unemployment, poverty or chronic health problems. Over the years, many successful Chinese athletes excelled in international competitions as the nation increased its investment in elite sports and strategically built up its talent selection system. In international games Chinese women frequently won more championships than men and became prominent media icons. At the 1992, 1996, and 2000 Olympics, Chinese women athletes outperformed their male counterparts and played a major part in raising China’s position at the medal table (Dong, 2003). In 2016, 256 female athletes and 160 male athletes represented China in the Rio Olympics. Along the road to success, women 12 editor@chinamediaresearch.net China Media Research, 14(1), 2018 athletes demonstrated a complex combination of characteristics—“among them obedience and defiance, assertion and compliance, self-interest and selfsacrifice” (Dong, 2003: 21). As these outstanding young women step into limelight and receive national and international honors, questions arise about their potential career tracks in the long run. How does a star athlete transform herself and emerge as a powerful leader? What would be the challenges for someone trying to reconcile her personal identity and her media image as symbol of national pride? How does a successful woman athlete continue to work with extrinsic and intrinsic motivations (George, 2007) to set new professional goals for herself? There has been little academic work addressing these questions in the context of the Chinese sports system, while scholars have written about the negative impact of Confucian legacy on leadership development among sportswomen (Dong, 2011; Gao, 2013). This article aims to bring insights to these issues through the case of volleyball legend Lang Ping, and to contribute to the literature of female leadership. Review of Literature Theoretical Framework According to Avolio and Gardner (2005), the components of authentic leadership are identified as positive psychological capital and moral perspective, leader and follower self-awareness/self-regulation, leadership processes/behaviors, follower development, organizational context, and veritable and sustained performance beyond expectations. They state that authentic leadership is the root informing construct of all new positive forms of leadership, including transformational, charismatic, servant and spiritual leadership. They point out that by definition, authenticity involves being true to oneself, not others, although authentic leadership has to include the leader’s relations with others. While leadership theory attributes the motivational effects of leadership to the consistency of leader's values and behaviors and the concordance of their values with those of followers, Sparrowe (2005) argues that authentic leadership is inseparable from the “narrative self.” Authenticity is not achieved by self-awareness of one’s inner values or purpose, but instead is emergent from the narrative process in which others play a constitutive role in the self. The true self is enduring, characterized by self-regulation and consistency, throughout “events, changes, surprises, and reversals of a narrated life” (p.430). In the narrative process, individuals also draw from the narratives of those around them in formulating their own stories. Overall, researchers found that authentic leadership emerged from leaders’ life experiences, instead of imitating others (George, 2007). “Consciously and subconsciously, http://www.chinamediaresearch.net http://www.chinamediaresearch.net they were constantly testing themselves through realworld experiences and reframing their life stories to understand who they were at their core. In doing so, they discovered the purpose of their leadership and learned that being authentic made them more effective” (p.2). As Brown and Posner (2001) suggested, leadership development is a learning process, and majority of leadership skills is learned from naturally occurring experiences in the work place. Those learners who are more active and versatile subsequently consider themselves more frequently involved and engaged in leadership behaviors. People with the greatest ability to face unfamiliar and new situations with a repertoire of ways of learning would engage most frequently in behaviors a s s o c i a t e d wi t h t r a n s f o r m a t i o n a l l e a d e r s h i p . Transformational leadership focuses on empowering, relationship building, participation, inspiration and motivation of workers, communicating and shaping the vision of the organization, and power sharing and collaboration (Cunningham & Cordeiro, 2003). According to Bass and Riggio (2006), the transformational leader serves as an ideal role model for followers, and is admired for his/her actions. Transformational leaders have the ability to inspire, motivate, and move followers toward the accomplishment of goals. The leader is skillful at both working on vision and the articulation of vision plans, to challenges followers to be innovative and creative. Meanwhile, Eagly (2005) argues that woman and other “outsiders” who traditionally did not have access to certain leadership roles may find it hard to achieve relational authenticity as they are not accorded the same level of legitimacy as leaders. This could be due to the interactive effects of gender role and leader role requirements. Ladkin and Taylor (2010) suggest that knowing one’s “true self” and behaving from that selfreferential place will not automatically be communicated to followers who will experience the leader as authentic. They reiterate that leader-like actions are tied to the motivations and dreams of the group they lead. The process of enacting authentic leadership involves the balancing and resolution of paradoxes and tensions, many of which have their origin in bodily and unconscious processes. Thus, a major challenge to embodying authentic leadership is to resolve the tensions that will occur between their individual, truly felt commitments and the identity needs of the group they lead. In sports, the groups/stakeholders involved could be the team members/staff, the fans/audience, sports institutions, sports governing bodies, and sometimes the governments and sponsors. The following section will discuss challenges for women in sports organizations to achieve leadership positions, particularly coaching 13 editor@chinamediaresearch.net China Media Research, 14(1), 2018 positions, and the strategies some women have developed to overcome gender barriers. Women in Sports Leadership Internationally, representation of women in positions of leadership has been low, as shown in membership percentages in organizations such as International Olympic Committee, even though there is a large number of women participating as athletes in many countries (Henry & Robinson, 2010). In Olympics games, most of the high profile positions of executive directors, chairmen, head coaches and team managers were all occupied by men while women in those organizations served on the general committees. The IOC has for the first time met its self-imposed threshold of at least 20% of the board composed of women members (Staurowsky, 2016). However, within national Olympic governing bodies (NGBs), 85.3% of those governing bodies are composed of all-male leadership teams. Sports institutions are often male dominated, and it is common for male coaches to work with female athletes, but not vise versa. In China, the amount of women sports leaders is also much lower than males, as seen in the small numbers of female coaches and women in the Chinese Olympic Committee or holding administrative positions at the director level of the SGAS (Dong, 2011). As the following part shows, this has been attributed to organizational, cultural and personal factors. According to female coaches attending the Women in Coaching Conferences sponsored by US Olympic Committee/National Collegiate Athletic Association, there are both external and internal barriers interfering with female coaches’ professional opportunities (Kilty, 2006). External barriers identified by women in coaching careers include unequal assumption of competence, wherein a male coach is automatically assumed to be more competent than a female coach; hiring from a principal of similarity, disadvantaging women in a male dominated department and those exhibiting an atypical/unfamiliar leadership style; homophobia against females who are considered “malelike” or possible lesbians, and lack of female mentors as their role models or networking contacts. Internal barriers identified can be the following: perfectionism, usually being self-critical; the desire to be liked and lack of assertiveness, which interferes with the coach’s ability to set limits, manage conflict, and negotiate effectively; inhibition in promotion of accomplishments related to low willingness to highlight their individual successes; and high stress of balancing work and life. Robertson (2010) also discussed struggles female coaches have to go through balancing motherhood and their work. Women’s coaching career could break due to maternity leave, lack of career planning or confidence http://www.chinamediaresearch.net http://www.chinamediaresearch.net to apply for leadership positions, lack of role models, and being evaluated against males. Successful female coaches possess general leadership skills that male coaches have, and they also often have strengths unique to females. In coaching, leadership requires the creation of interpersonal relationships between the coach and athletes (Vella, Oades, & Crowe, 2010), which helps to develop individual potentials of the athletes. Athletes look up to the coach for guidance, motivation, inspiration, strategic planning, and team outcomes in stressful training and competitions. Women coaches view themselves as being in a position to provide support and encouragement to athletes, rather than viewing their positions as power positions (Theberge, 1990). Although their fulfillment of roles and responsibilities largely depends on the institutional support and the cultural context within which the organizations function, women in sports leadership have devised strategies to overcome the challenges they encounter in their career development. M’mbaha (2012) identified the following strategies among women coaches in Kenya: resistance to discriminatory practices, becoming the voice of social change, balancing family and work, empowering women, networking and social support, role modeling and mentoring, and finally, creating visibility through the use of media. Above all, women coaches have aspirations and goals for themselves, which enabled them to stay motivated and overcome various types of hurdles to do their work. In this article, an examination of how Lang Ping articulates her personal stories, reflections, and strategies to overcome challenges would be potentially beneficial for women sports leaders in various countries, as many of them share similar issues. Method The paper uses a life stories approach (Shamir & Eilam, 2005) to examine how a sports leader develops herself over time through narrating and reflecting upon her experiences, particularly key events, decisions and choices. It also analyzes her development of a transformative leadership style as demonstrated in her coaching practices. First, research materials were collected from leader communication data (Slater, 2015) from Lang Ping herself —interviews, speeches and announcements, as well as autobiographical publications. Secondly, the author reviews news reports and sports organization reports, including accounts in media by players in her team, her colleagues, and others around her. In particular, the research focuses on data related to key events of her professional and personal life in her coaching career, including her roles in the Olympic Games, and turning points. 14 editor@chinamediaresearch.net China Media Research, 14(1), 2018 As an iconic newsmaker, Lang Ping has given many interviews, both in print media and on television, mostly in Chinese and sometimes in English and Italian. She has also been highly self-reflexive since her early life, as shown in her book Lang Ping Diaries and Letters published in 1986, and her autobiography Passionate Years (Jiqing Suiyue) published in 1999 (coauthored with writer Lu Xinger). Due to the amount of information, the Chinese media data examined for the project focused on reports around her highly visible role in the 2008 and 2016 Olympics, which was collected from the internet portal Sina.com. Additional online materials include websites of Chinese Women’s Volleyball Team and International Volleyball Federation (FIVB), and US newspaper articles about her Olympic experiences. In the research process, the focus is placed on materials that are relevant to Lang Ping’s career reflections and leadership strategies/styles, which amounts to 400-500 articles as well as her autobiography, rather than sports news stories on specific games or player performances. Results This section examines major components of authentic leadership development in Lang Ping’s coaching career, including leader self-awareness, selfregulation, leadership practice/follower development, and sustained performance with transformative effects to the organization. Due to the space limit, only selected highlights of her achievements and records in various eras were discussed, to illuminate the theoretical elements. Leader Self-Awareness: Finding the Path Self-awareness for leaders is an emerging process where one continually comes to understand his/her unique talents, strengths, sense of purpose, core values, beliefs, and desires (Avolio and Gardner, 2005). One of the traits that Lang Ping possesses that set her apart from others in her younger days was her habit of writing extensive training diaries, as noticed by a female sports reporter embedded with the national team who later facilitated the publication of the diaries (Lang, 1986) and Lang’s autobiography. Lang also took time from her busy schedule to reply to fan’s letters, which amounted to thousands after a championship game. She once encouraged a fan facing setbacks and unemployment to fight with a strong will and find meanings from struggles like Jane Eyre (Lang, 1986). The passions of her fans made her aware that she was not just a champion athlete, but also a role model for many young women. In their eyes, Lang Ping embodied the spirit of the Women’s Volleyball Team as the symbol of a fearless fighting spirit and dedication, which inspired young people to apply to own goals from personal careers to collective initiatives. http://www.chinamediaresearch.net http://www.chinamediaresearch.net While her pursuit of self-growth through selfcultivation can be attributed to a Confucian tradition, publishing the diaries of role model figures to inspire the younger generation has been a typical practice in the Chinese official media system. For instance, diaries of model soldier Lei Feng in the Mao years and handicapped writer/inspirational speaker Zhang Haidi in the 1980s were distributed along with official propaganda posters. When Lang Ping’s diaries appeared in New Sports, some readers inquired “Are these really written by Lang Ping herself?” The magazine had to include an article by her on how she wrote her diary, and pages of her handwritings (Lang, 1986). At key moments of her career development, the desire to find her authentic self was instrumental for Lang Ping to take steps different from what others expected of her. After retiring as an athlete in 1985 and finding that she could not go anywhere without being recognized, she decided to “start from zero” and become a student in the US, as she realized that an administrative role in the sports bureaucracy would not fit her. She found a new life in New Mexico, where she acquired a master's degree in Sports Management. Working on short-term contracts in Italy and US as a summer camp coach, athlete, assistant coach and head coach, Lang Ping learned to speak the languages fluently and expanded her perspectives. In the US she was surprised to see volleyball viewed not as a matter of national honor, but as a hobby or entertainment (Lang, 1999). Her friendship with international sports professionals later gave her support when she had moments of self-doubt and fear preparing her team for the Olympics. The different perspective helped her keep calm as a coach during crucial moments in highpressure games in front of thousands of screaming viewers, as she stated: “Volleyball is not world war” (Lang, 1999). Then a career opportunity presented her with a tough and emotional choice. After settling down with a green card in the US and becoming a mother, she found herself facing the request from China to return and work as head coach of the national team, which had slid to No. 8 in the world as she watched from afar. When Lang Ping left the US to take the position in early 1995, nearly 100 reporters surrounded her at the Beijing airport, making the event one of the biggest news stories of the year in China. Her work plan to revive the team ahead of the 1996 Olympics was published in major newspapers. Her arrival brought hope to older players with injuries who decided to delay their retirement. The assistant coaches from provincial teams chose to stay in the national team to work with her, even though they had to live away from their families for two more years. She motivated young players to push to their limits to go through the rigorous training, while making her rules clear to everyone, such as forbidding any romantic 15 editor@chinamediaresearch.net China Media Research, 14(1), 2018 involvement between the male assistant coaches and the women players. When training for the Olympics, she fainted several times in the field due to the highpressure work and lack of rest. The team won a silver in Atlanta, an amazing achievement that gained Lang Ping the honor of Best Women's Volleyball Coach by FIVB. With her devotion and determination, she found herself acknowledged as one of the top volleyball coaches in the world. Leader Self-Regulation: Playing the Role Self-regulation is the process through which authentic leaders align their values with their intentions and actions (Avolio and Gardner, 2005). This component of enacting authentic leadership involves dynamic process of the balancing and resolution of conflicts to make leader choices. For sports leaders, it also involves managing their complex authentic emotions in front of their followers in crucial events as if on stage (Ladkin & Taylor, 2010). In her autobiography Lang Ping acknowledged she was torn between her loves for volleyball and for her daughter, whom she had shared custody after her divorce. She also had health concerns when signing a new contract due to her knee injuries years ago. In 2005, when she was hesitating whether to take the job offer to coach the US team so as to spend more time with her adolescent daughter living there or continuing working in Italy, she consulted her Chinese friends, former colleagues, and reporters. China’s internet portal Sina Net conducted a poll answered by thousands of netizens. More than half of them indicated their support of Lang Ping as coach of the US team. This result surprised Lang Ping, who had lived outside China for years, and helped her make the decision to accept the job that later landed her in an extraordinary spot. She explained: “I wanted to see the reaction…I said, ‘If so many people, they don't like me to coach here, I will get out.’ Because I try to respect their feelings” (USA Today, 2005). Three years later, Lang Ping’s unique role was witnessed by the US team members she led to Beijing in 2008. During the Olympics, Nicole Davis, a US volleyball player, found Lang Ping remained a beloved figure among the Chinese and observed many Chinese cheered for the US team because of Lang Ping: There have been times when we’ve had to be her bodyguards. People here just want to touch her. Mothers have thrown their babies at her. They just want to be near her. There’s no parallel to that. Not Michael Jordan. Not anybody. I think the way she’s respected here is extremely unique. (Seattle Times, August 6, 2008) When the US women’s volleyball team coached by her faced off with China in the Beijing Olympics, the term “peaceful war” occupied newspaper headlines. The http://www.chinamediaresearch.net http://www.chinamediaresearch.net Chinese audience noticed Lang Ping spoke English the whole time while answering reporter questions instead of Chinese, unlike the star they were familiar with. When the US team met the Chinese team, coached by Chen Zhonghe, her former assistant coach who worked under her supervision in the 1990s, the reporters noted Lang had complicated feelings when shaking hands with him, but played her role as the US coach professionally. While online posts criticized her as a betrayer and blamed her for the failure of the Chinese team, her supporters argued that she gained pride for the country by being valued abroad for her talent as a coach. Contemplating on the meaning of the Olympics and volleyball to her in an interview, Lang Ping found that being mature made her see things differently. She indicated that winning the gold medal was no longer what would define her true self: As for the Olympics, I was definitely very enthusiastic, impressed and excited when I first went there. Today, I feel differently. The Olympics is just one big party which you have to treat with a normal frame of mind. I have invested more than three decades of my life in volleyball. Now I have finally learned to liberate myself to enjoy volleyball. Each stage of life has its own meaning. There is only one champion, but everyone has the right to have their own unique and rich life. (Southern Weekend, 2008) As Lang Ping and some of her fans indicated, the meanings of her Olympics performances cannot be contained within the narrative of the nation. The former athlete was able to articulate her own identity and goals when continuing to grow beyond the competition for medals. Leadership Practice and Follower Development: Working with People In authentic leadership development, both leaders and followers are developed over time as the relationship between them becomes more authentic. The process is relational, where both follower and leader are shaped in their respective development (Avolio and Gardner, 2005). In Lang Ping’s challenging trajectory of international coaching practices, the women athletes experienced her charismatic power from their own perspectives. When coaching the US team, Lang Ping found that unlike China, there was not a regimented team or training procedures guaranteed in place. She acknowledged it was a difficult time for her initially (FIVB, 2014). The players emphasized personal interests, and therefore they were more free and less cohesive. Even for the Olympics, it was hard for her to assemble the entire team together to train. While adjusting to the different style of the US team members, 16 editor@chinamediaresearch.net China Media Research, 14(1), 2018 Lang Ping realized the players had their special strengths: American players are usually well-educated and they learn very fast. I respect their way of thinking about the problems. The American girls are very relaxed, and the fact that they played volleyball out of personal interest has affected me. I feel more relaxed. (Southern Weekend, 2008) As a player and coach who has gone though many tough international games, she understands how important cohesion is for a team and has built up her own way of cultivating dedication in her players. As she adjusted to the creative strengths of the Americans who liked to ask the coach “why,” even players who were initially doubtful of her role found her personalized training procedures effective and became fond of “Jenny,” her English name. Her passionate encouragement and meticulousness brought out a spectacular performance from the “part-time” team assembled several months before the Olympics. Overcoming the difference in culture and sports systems, Lang Ping’s work with the US team impressed USA Volleyball Chief Executive Doug Beal: “We are so very lucky to have had her these past four years, not only for her qualities as a coach, but also for being such a great leader and role model” (FIVB, July 29, 2014). Her power to make media headlines and draw large audiences was appealing to sharp businessmen in China. In 2009, she returned to China as the head coach of the newly established Guangdong Evergrande team. In this position she was given full control of the team management and experimented fresh methods for training young players. Sustained Performance: Transformative Leader Effect Lang Ping’s coaching record outshined all domestic volleyball coaches in China, an achievement that eventually enabled her to reenter and bring changes to the system. In 2013, when she announced her decision to accept the head coach position of the Chinese national team once again after 14 years, a team with a disappointing performance in the 2012 London Olympics, she revealed the tough negotiations with the authorities before signing the contract as well as her health concerns. As she was aware, the pressure of coaching Chinese women’s volleyball team is associated with a high expectation from the public to win, as they would not easily accept any failure. As the result of the negotiations, Lang Ping was able to make drastic reforms to strengthen the team, including hiring kinesiotherapists from the U.S. and hand-picking inexperienced but young players from provincial and youth teams, forming a training team of more than 30 people. The multinational support personnel included http://www.chinamediaresearch.net http://www.chinamediaresearch.net medical professionals, nutritionists and information analysts as well as assistant coaches and playing coaches. She discarded the team’s traditional musclebuilding training methods, such as weight lifting, which could lead to injuries. She created a personalized training plan for each player in the team and made periodical adjustments. After her team won the world cup in 2015, an article in Beijing Youth Daily noted that the sports authorities granted special freedom to Lang Ping when convincing her to take the head coach role, along with extra manpower and resources to support the championship-aimed training, due to her unique reputation and her status similar to a foreign coach. The article concludes that the successful medal-producing “Lang Ping model” could not be duplicated, as Lang Ping as a leader could not be duplicated, but some key points of the model could be adopted by other sports in China. In her coaching practices Lang Ping nurtured both young players and veterans, and made efforts in blending a balanced combination. One team member, Zhu Ting, became the Most Valuable Player both at the 2015 World Cup and at the Rio Olympics. The players called her “Lang Mama,” as she cared for them with motherly attention to details— She remembered every player’s birthday and everyone’s injuries, reminded them to wash hands between training and meals, went shopping with them, and sought opportunities for some to play volleyball abroad. She walked with crutches to attend the wedding of a player after a surgery. Wei Qiuyue, member of the women's volleyball team in Rio, described how Lang Ping lifted her morale: When I was injured, I was quite emotional, and I often looked for Lang to vent my feelings, often breaking down in tears…Lang's words encouraged me and gave me a sense of belonging. When my self-confidence was shaken, she took my hand, telling me that I had what it takes to stand on the Olympic podium. (China Daily, 2017) In the 2016 Rio Olympics, the China team coached by Lang Ping had been defeated by the US in the group stage and was not a pre-tournament title favorite. The night the team miraculously won the semifinal, she told these selfie-taking young women to get as much rest as possible instead of getting on social media to share the victory, as the final would start in 46 hours, but she herself stayed up to analyze the game video. When the Chinese women's volleyball team took on Serbia in the final, the live broadcast on national TV reached a rating of 57 percent (Sohu News, 2016), far exceeding the audience rating for Lunar New Year Gala. After the victory, when she praised on Weibo the “sweat and sacrifice” of the team and the “women’s volleyball spirit that is passed down through generations,” the post attracted over 950,000 likes. 17 editor@chinamediaresearch.net China Media Research, 14(1), 2018 Netizens in China labeled her “Godmother” and “Notre Dame” of women’s volleyball, and questioned those who criticized her in 2008 as she found redemption. Chinese sports reporters sometimes used the term “Lang family troop” to refer to the volleyball teams she had coached, but Lang Ping did not like to label the team with her own name. In an interview in Rio, Lang Ping said: “The spirit of the Chinese women's volleyball team is to never give up. My duty as the coach is to guide this young team to carry on this spirit” (Xinhua, 2016). Upon her return from the Rio Olympics the media was speculating whether Lang Ping would retire or move abroad again. For her dedication to volleyball Lang Ping had sacrificed her family life, and undergone a dozen surgeries for injuries from her athlete days. She got married in January 2016 to a scholar in Beijing after being single for two decades, and her daughter graduated from Stanford. In 2017 Lang Ping declined a job offer coaching the Italy women’s volleyball team, and stepped into the “chief coach” role of the Chinese national team designed for her to focus on the team navigation and fostering young coaches, a position enabling her to spend more time with her mother in her 80s. After a long journey, her personal goals and career coal finally came together. Conclusion Lang Ping’s stories and narratives demonstrated the power of intrinsic motivations in leadership development, as well as the dialectical forces of change and consistency in knowing one’s purpose in life and following that purpose. Her leadership abilities were cultivated when she performed as the “soul” of her team when fighting for champions in the 1980s, and grew in substance and capacity as she worked through various coaching roles from country to country, before Chinese authorities started to award gold medalists with apartments, cars, and cash bonus. In an era when Chinese women athletes often become corporate brand spokespersons due to their physical attractiveness, Lang Ping stands out with her intrinsic values to inspire young people and revive a faded glory. Her global coaching experiences and insights ultimately enabled her to renew and redefine her leader/heroine role, and to guide the younger generation of players with the legacy of her old team. Her journey also showcased the fluid process of identity construction of a global sports leader in her pursuit of new meanings in her different roles. An iconic figure of the media, she embodies the selfless collectivism and idealism of the “iron girls” in the prereform China, and a “yearning” for a larger horizon in the openness and search for modernity of the 1980s (Rofel, 1999), an era many middle-aged people feel nostalgic for. In an age of commercialization she http://www.chinamediaresearch.net http://www.chinamediaresearch.net remained true to herself, followed her core values, took responsibility for others, and demonstrated an authenticity admired by China’s youth seeking their own meanings in life among global and local currents. Carrying the burden of a nation of one billion could be sometimes overwhelming, and it made her feel emotional many times in making life choices (Lang, 1999). Her appeal to the Chinese public surpasses sports and gold medals, reminding people that the heroine who once moved a whole population can regenerate new energies and rekindle hope for the nation. For aspiring women sports leaders seeking to breakthrough established frameworks, her tireless teambuilding effort across cultures and her courage to write her own narratives continue to be an inspiration for the international sports community. Correspondence to: Dr. Janice Hua Xu School of Arts and Sciences Holy Family University 9801 Frankford Ave. Philadelphia, PA 19114, USA Email: jxu@holyfamily.edu References Avolio, B. J., & Gardner, W. L. (2005). Authentic leadership development: Getting to the root of positive forms of leadership. The leadership quarterly, 16(3), 315-338. Bass, B. M., & Riggio, R. E. (2006). Transformational leadership. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Beijing Youth Daily (2015, Sept. 8). Lang Ping Model can hardly be duplicated—Freedom of coaching environment and easing of restrictions unprecedented. Retrieved from http://sports. sohu. com/20150908/n420601644.shtml Brown, L. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2001). Exploring the relationship between learning and leadership. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 22(6), 274-280. Brownell, S. (2008). Beijing's games: what the Olympics mean to China. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. China Daily USA (January 21, 2017). Volleyball is more than a game. Retrieve from http://usa. chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2017-01/21/content_28 035763.htm Cunningham, W. G., & Cordeiro, P. A. (2003). Education leadership: A problem based approach. (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc. Dong, J. (2003). Women, sport, and society in modern China: Holding up more than half the sky. Psychology Press. Dong, J. (2011). National identity, Olympic victory, and Chinese sportswomen in the global era. The 18 editor@chinamediaresearch.net China Media Research, 14(1), 2018 Olympics in East Asia: Nationalism, regionalism, and globalism on the center stage of world sports, 161-184. Eagly, A. H. (2005). Achieving relational authenticity in leadership: Does gender matter? The Leadership Quarterly, 16(3), 459-474. FIVB (August 21, 2016). Lang Ping becomes first person in volleyball to win Olympic gold as player and coach. http://www.fivb.com/en/about/news/ la ng-ping-becomes-first-person-in-volleyball? Id = 64550 FIVB (July 29, 2014). “Jenny” Lang Ping: a legendary wanderer between worlds. Retrieved from http://www.fivb.org/viewPressRelease.asp?No=475 02&Language=en Gao, Y. (2013). Sporting gender: Women athletes and celebrity-making during China’s national crisis, 1931-45. UBC Press. George, B., Sims, P., McLean, A. N., & Mayer, D. (2007). Discovering your authentic leadership. Harvard business review, 85(2), 129. Henry, I. P., & Robinson, L. (2010). Gender equality and leadership in Olympic bodies. International Olympic Committee and Centre for Olympic Studies & Research, Loughborough University. Hogan, J. (2003). Staging the nation: Gendered and ethnicized discourses of national identity in Olympic opening ceremonies. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 27(2), 100-123.http://www.fivb.com/ en/about/news/lang-ping-becomes-first-person-involleyball?id=64550 Hutchins, B., & Rowe, D. (2012). Sport beyond television: The Internet, digital media and the rise of networked media sport (Vol. 40). Abingdon , UK: Routledge. Kelly, W. W., & Brownell, S. (2011). The Olympics in East Asia: Nationalism, regionalism, and globalism on the center stage of world sports. Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University. Kilty, K. (2006). Women in coaching. The Sport Psychologist, 20(2), 222-234. Ladkin, D., & Taylor, S. S. (2010). Enacting the “true self”: Towards a theory of embodied authentic leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 21(1), 64-74. Lang, P. (1986). Lang Ping Diaries and Letters. People’s Sports Publishing House. Lang, P. & Lu, X. (1999). Passionate Years— Autobiography of Lang Ping. Dong Fang Publishing Center. Li, M., MacIntosh, E., & Bravo, G. (2012). International sport management. Human Kinetics. M’mbaha, J. M. (2012). Experiences of Women in Sports Leadership in Kenya. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Georgia, Athens. GA. Robertson, S. (2010). Perils and pleasures of coaching in motherhood. In S. Robertson (Ed.), Taking the http://www.chinamediaresearch.net http://www.chinamediaresearch.net Lead: Strategies and Solutions from Female Coaches. 3-35. Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press. Rofel, L. (1999). Other modernities: Gendered yearnings in China after socialism. Univ of California Press. Seattle Times (August 6, 2008). Hero’s welcome for volleyball star Lang Ping. Retrieved from http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/heroswelcome-for-volleyball-star-lang-ping/ Shamir, B., House, R. J., & Arthur, M. B. (1993). The motivational effects of charismatic leadership: A self-concept based theory. Organization science, 4(4), 577-594. Slater, M. J., Barker, J. B., Coffee, P., & Jones, M. V. (2015). Leading for gold: social identity leadership processes at the London 2012 Olympic Games. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 7(2), 192-209. Sohu News (August 21, 2016) Women’s volleyball final ratings exploded; A 5-second ad cost 2.1 million yuan on CCTV. Retrieved from http:// news. sohu.com/20160821/n465241890.shtml Southern Weekend (August 21, 2008). From being champion to enjoying volleyball. http:// www. zo n aeuropa.com/20080821_1.htm Sparrowe, R. T. (2005). Authentic leadership and the narrative self. The leadership quarterly, 16(3), 419439. Staurowsky, E. J. (2016). Women and Sport: From Liberation to Celebration. Human Kinetics. Tomlinson, A. (1996). Olympic spectacle: Opening ceremonies and some paradoxes of globalization. Media, Culture & Society, 18(4), 583-602. USA Today (June 1, 2005). Volleyball coach has roots in two worlds. Retrieved from http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/su mmer/2005-06-01-volleyball-lang_x.htm Vella, S. A., Oades, L. G., & Crowe, T. P. (2010). Review: The application of coach leadership models to coaching practice: Current state and future directions. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 5(3), 425-434. Wangyi News (January 22, 2012). Why youth sports schools are barely surviving. http://news.163.com/ special/reviews/sportsschool.html Xinhua (August 22, 2016) Stories behind the Olympic Championship by Chinese women’s volleyball team--Interview with Lang Ping and Zhu Ting. Retrieved from http://news.xinhuanet.com/ sports/ 2016-08/22/c_129246657.htm Theberge, N. (1990). Gender, work, and power: The case of women in coaching. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 15(1), 59-75. (12/15/2017) 19 editor@chinamediaresearch.net China Media Research, 14(1), 2018 http://www.chinamediaresearch.net http://www.chinamediaresearch.net 20 editor@chinamediaresearch.net