Servant Leadership in Sport: A New Paradigm for Effective Coach Behavior

Abstract

Coaches are searching for contemporary leadership models which resonate with the modern-day athlete. Many elements of the Servant Leadership model, such as trust, inclusion, humility and service, are well suited to enhanced coach behaviors with this cohort. The purpose of this study was to examine how coaches who were perceived by their athletes to possess “servant leader” characteristics were associated with their athletes' use of mental skills, motivation, satisfaction and performance Participants were 195 high-school basketball athletes from the Pacific Northwest in the USA. It was found that athletes who perceived their coach to possess servant leader qualities also displayed higher intrinsic motivation, were more task oriented, were more satisfied, were “mentally tougher,” and performed better than were athletes coached by non-servant leaders. Furthermore, results showed that high-school basketball athletes preferred the servant-leader coaching style to more traditional styles. Results suggest that coaches who use the methods advocated by the servant-leader model produce athletes with a healthier psychological profile for sport who also perform well.

The Application of Coach Leadership Models to Coaching Practice: Current State and Future Directions

“…Both Rowold [15] and Callow et al [16] have tested the applicability of the transformational leadership model [17] to the sport coaching context with positive results, and have been supported by qualitative work [18]. Extending this, research has recently suggested that servant leadership may also be an appropriate model [19]. Servant leadership is defined by the core constructs of trust, humility and service to others.…”

“…Chelladurai must also be applauded for the integration of aspects of the transformational leadership model into his multidimensional model [28]. Moreover, recent studies have recommended various leadership styles as the most suitable for sports coaching, including transformational leadership [15][16], servant leadership [19] and altruistic leadership [20]. Notwithstanding this recent influx of relational additions to the literature, the definition of coach leadership as a purely behavioural process may only serve to slow the progress on the understanding of coach leadership as it unfolds in the reality of coaching practice.…”

“…Firstly, performance has been equated to achievement. These studies have used measures of team and athlete success, such as win/loss record [19], or qualification for a major tournament [16] as outcome variables. This interpretation of the performance outcome is problematic, because effective coach leadership is not necessarily correlated with athlete success: "Indeed, the goal of outright 'success', however so defined, is logically unobtainable for most, if not all, coaches" [11, p. 120].…”

“…Numerous researchers have used this measure as an indication of the effectiveness of coach leadership [eg. 19,[39][40][41]. However, satisfaction is only one of a number of important and well-defined outcomes present in the literature.…”

Special Olympians as a “Prophetic Sign” to the Modern Sporting Babel

“…The importance of building and managing healthy relationships in secular sport coaching and physical education texts has received some attention (e.g., Martens, 2004). Nonetheless, with a handful of exceptions (Rieke, Hammermeister and Chase, 2008;Fellowship of Christian Athletes, 2008;Gallagher, 2008;Dungy, 2008;Wooden, 2005 xxxv ;McCown and Gin, 2003;Boyers, 2000) there has been very limited Christian reflection on relationships on able-bodied sport and certainly not for disabled sport. 113) found in her study of the use of leisure and sport in L'Arche, leisure can be used to foster community and 'the Christian focus of love in L'Arche is to announce the ridiculous-that we NEED them to teach us to trust, laugh easily, live more in the moment, enjoy the presence of others, and accept one another unconditionally'.…”