Other People Matter: Servant Leadership in Interscholastic Athletics

By: Greg Sullivan, Ph.D. - Ohio and Scott Smith, Ph.D., CAA - Ohio

Leadership is a highly-discussed concept in athletic circles but perhaps equally misunderstood. Even though there has been a great deal of high quality sport leadership research produced over the past few decades, more of it needs to be available in a form that is useful to the people who need it most, practitioners such as interscholastic athletic directors. One major goal of this paper is to bridge the gap between theory and practice for interscholastic athletic directors. Specifically, the paper will do this by seeking to first introduce the interscholastic athletic director to an exciting approach to leadership, servant leadership (and its focus on follower need satisfaction), and enable athletic directors to build a sound personal philosophy of leadership. Second, to define what is meant by need satisfaction and how that relates to athletic leadership, and finally, to provide ways to apply this research in your day-to-day activities as athletic directors. It is the authors' contention that an increased understanding of these ideas and their respective applications will enhance the leadership skill sets of interscholastic athletic directors and assist in enriching the athletic experiences for directors, coaches, and athletes.

The role of positive psychology in leadership.

In 1998, The newly elected president of the American Psychological Association, Martin Seligman, suggested that the tools of psychology currently primarily being used to treat mental pathologies and disorders, could be used to improve the lives of everyone, and the era of positive psychology was born (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). While the initial focus was on assisting individuals to flourish, others saw the benefits for organizations and how problems could be viewed as opportunities and that people are the most important resources of an organization (Cameron, Dutton, & Quinn, 2003). The driving force behind the positive psychology movement was the idea that "other people matter" and that the benefits of a people-centered approach not only had benefits for individuals but for organizations as well (Peterson, 2013, p.127).

Servant Leadership

An integral aspect of this positive approach is that employees are no longer viewed as 'the enemy' but rather as "pro-organizational, self-actualizing, and trustworthy" which led researchers to turn their focus to forms of leadership that were focused on employee well-being and on ethical behavior (van Dierendonck, 2011, p. 1229). These concepts are being applied to sport and one area with great potential is athletic leadership. One form of leadership that has garnered a great deal of attention in recent years is servant leadership. Interestingly, servant leadership is not a new concept as it was initially introduced in 1970 by an executive turned researcher named Robert K. Greenleaf. In his formative essay on the topic, he described a type of leadership with a primary focus on satisfying the needs of followers and the concept that leaders are servants first with a natural inclination to serve. Greenleaf (1970) believed that serving others enabled personal growth, well-being, and the follower's desire to serve others.

The renewed interest in servant leadership stems from its core principles of focus on others, an emphasis on the needs and development of followers, and the creation of the next generation of leaders (Parris & Peachey, 2012). Greenleaf summarized his ideas on leadership as, "the best test, and the most difficult to administer, is this: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?" (Greenleaf, 1977, pp. 13-14). Servant leaders are unique in that they perceive themselves as first among equals, are motivated by the need to serve, and believe that the fundamental nature of leadership is to serve others (van Dierendonck, 2011). To differentiate servant leadership from other leadership theories, specific dimensions of servant leadership have been offered. Servant leaders display conceptual skills for their jobs, they empower others and display a concern for follower growth and success. As described, servant leaders put followers first, and behave ethically. Finally, servant leaders are concerned for the emotional health of others and in creating value for the community.

There are some similarities with other types of leadership but the emphasis on the importance of follower needs and on ethical behavior sets it apart from other leadership approaches (Jaramillo, Bande, & Varela, 2015). Servant leadership is most often compared to other popular theories such as transformational, authentic, leader-member exchange, and ethical leadership theories and while there are similarities, no other theory incorporates all key servant leader attributes (Liden, Panaccio, Meuser, Hu, & Wayne, 2014; Liden, Wayne, Zhao, & Henderson, 2008; van Dierendonck, 2011). For example, while both transformational and servant leaders are motivated to empower their followers, the primary commitment of a transformational athletic director is to the school rather than coaches and athletes and could allow for the negatively influencing of coaches and athletes to achieve organizational or a leader's personal goals (Burton and Welty-Peachey, 2013; Parris & Peachey, 2012; Welty-Peachey & Burton, 2017). With this focus on the individual, rather than the organization, important psychological needs can be satisfied (van Dierendonck, Stam, Boersma, de Windt, & Alema, 2014). In the following sections, we will address these ideas of need satisfaction, ethical behaviors, and applications for interscholastic athletic directors.

Need Satisfaction. Most involved in athletics have witnessed those who take a win-at-all-cost approach which has led to the acceptance of controlling leadership style and a lack of focus on coaches and athletes, their needs have been largely ignored (DeSensi, 2014). Through need satisfaction, athletic directors can positively influence organizational outcomes by enabling follower's growth and well-being and can transform athletics by being more attentive and concerned for coaches, fellow administrators, and student athletes (Burton and Welty-Peachey, 2013; Chiniara & Bentein, 2016; Mayer, 2010).

So, what is meant by need satisfaction? To answer this question, another must be asked: What were (or hopefully are) the attributes of your best work experience? Disregarding pay for a moment what made it a great place to work? There were probably many features that made it a great work experience but almost all can be distilled down into three key elements: you liked your coworkers, you had some say in your role, and you felt like you were good at your job. Those elements, the need for belongingness (feeling connected to others), autonomy (feeling in control of one's environment), and competence (feeling confident and capable), are not wants or desires, but actual psychological needs that we all have and the research behind these findings is plentiful and robust (Mayer, 2010; Ryan & Deci, 2002). When these needs are satisfied, we are more motivated and more likely to experience other positive outcomes such as well-being, positive job attitude, going above and beyond for others and the organization, and improved job performance (Mayer, 2010).

Applications. Knowing that athletic directors who are servant leaders are distinguished by their focus on the needs of their followers and that needs are defined as belongingness, autonomy, and competence, we now turn to our third and perhaps most important goal for this article: discussing specific ways to meet those needs for peers and coaches. Meeting those needs is also referred to as creating a need supportive environment and athletic directors seeking to be more of a servant leader can employ these actions to meet the needs of others. The following is an adapted list of practical guidelines created by Mageau and Vallerand (2003) for the interscholastic athletic director are seven specific ways for an athletic director to meet the needs of others:

1. Providing choice - As discussed, we need to have some autonomy in the workplace. Think of autonomy as the opposite of being controlled. Athletic directors can meet the need for autonomy by providing options for coaches.
2. Providing a rationale for task, limits, and rules - Often we tell people to perform certain tasks without including one important piece of information: why. Providing the why behind tasks, limits and rules enables coaches to understand the importance of doing things in a certain way and how it ultimately meets the needs of the school and the student athletes. For coaches, understanding the why is motivating.
3. Inquiring about and acknowledging the feelings of others - to build a connection with others requires a good deal of empathy. Athletic directors need to build that personal bond to meet the need for belongingness.
4. Provide opportunities for staff and coaches to take initiative and do independent work - One of the best ways to meet the needs of coaches is to tell them, and show them, that they are trusted. To trust someone is a way of saying I believe you can do it. It also enables a coach to understand that there is a connection between them and the athletic director. Finally, trust provides the perception of autonomy for the coach. In effect, trust is a way of meeting all three needs for coaches.
5. Provide non-controlling feedback - avoiding the use of 'should,' 'must,' 'ought to,' or 'has to' - How we speak to our coaches sends a strong message as to their role in the organization. Using controlling feedback is a way of creating the perception that they don't have a say and that they are being controlled. Remember when you recalled your best work situation: did you perceive that you were controlled?
6. Avoid guilt-inducing or controlling criticisms - When athletic directors rely on psychological control, the emotional bond between the coach and athletic director becomes threatened. Coaches perceive that they must ignore their own values and abandon their autonomy to maintain that relationship.
7. Minimize ego involvement - President Theodore Roosevelt said that comparison is the thief of joy and comparison to the standards of other is demotivating for coaches. Being told that you are not as good a coach as other coaches in the program is a way of limiting the ability to perceive that a coach is competent. Perhaps the old coaching adage can also apply to athletic directors, if they are constantly trying to 'catch coaches doing something right'!

Servant Leadership and Ethics

The relationship between servant leadership and need satisfaction is an important one. In exploring the relationship between need satisfaction and servant leadership, Schwepker and Schultz (2015) found that the perception of need satisfaction from servant leaders, motivated followers to reciprocate with positive work performance leading to both ethical actions improved work performance. Panaccio, Henderson, Liden, Wayne, and Cao (2015) found that servant leader need satisfaction fulfills a psychological contract between employer and employee. Fulfillment of that contract motivates employees to go above and beyond for the organization. Finally, need satisfaction motivated followers to behave in ways that transcend a transactional employer-employee relationship as it creates a "norm of reciprocity" within an organization (Panaccio, Henderson, Liden, Wayne, & Cao, 2015, p. 670).

Conclusion

There is a tremendous opportunity for athletic directors to adopt a leadership style that focuses first and foremost on the needs of others. We have defined those needs as the need for autonomy, belongingness, and competency. Those needs can be met by creating a need supportive environment and we have detailed seven approaches that enable the interscholastic athletic director to do just that. These ideas will enable the interscholastic athletic director to support, or even create, his or her own leadership philosophy and become the leader that creates a workplace of choice.

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