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By: Mark Rerick, CMAA - University of North Dakota Athletic administration roles come in all shapes and sizes: standalone jobs at the building level, standalone jobs at the district level, high school, middle school, K-12, full-time, part-time stipend work with or without scheduled time during the school day, combined with principal ship, combined with teaching, combined with coaching, and numerous other combinations. Although most directors of athletics do a little bit of everything, the main function of an athletic administrator can vary widely from district-to-district depending on the size of the school district and the structure of the job. Some directors of athletics are tasked mainly with supervisory or management roles, e.g. monitoring home contests or coaches’ behavior; some are tasked with mainly clerical roles, e.g. finding and scheduling officials, game workers, or buses; and some are tasked mainly with organizational visionary roles, e.g. district coordination or committee work. Despite the job description, an athletic administrator's true purpose is leadership, specifically the growth and progress of the coaching staff. Deciding how to lead, particularly in the early days of a career or job change, can be a daunting task. The first essential part of leadership is understanding where a leader’s power comes from. In Leadership Training Course (LTC) 719, as summarized by Northouse (2010), six sources of power are identified: reward, coercive, referent, legitimate, expert, and informational.
Directors of athletics will find the need to mix and match those sources of power in various aspects of their jobs. However, of those listed, good leaders should strive to utilize expert and referent power. It takes time to earn referent power, and it takes time to gain the experience needed to establish expert power. The challenge for a new athletic administrator is finding leadership theories and approaches that can be used while building those stronger sources of power. Two leadership styles that can be immediately used are service leadership and servant leadership, but it’s important that athletic directors understand the difference between the two. Service leadership is immediately available to any leader, but the true mission of athletic leadership – the growth of coaches and athletes – will be hampered when a leader spends too much time practicing service leadership. While servant leadership can also impede the true goals of athletic administration, it does provide opportunities for follower growth. Service leadership is defined simply as providing a service to followers. Any athletic administrator who has lovingly repeated the phrase “AD stands for All Duties” has likely engaged in service leadership. Every time an AD cuts the grass, lines the field, sets up equipment, mops a floor, officiates a game, serves as the PA or score book keeper, or fills in as a coach, he or she is providing service leadership. The positives of service leadership are rooted in the messaging that a leader is willing to “get dirty.” Service leaders not only fill the task gaps that exist for one reason or another, but they also show followers the work they are doing is important enough to occupy a leader’s time, too. Service leaders display their collaboration and demonstrate their commitment towards successful events. The problem with being a service leader too often is it creates an inability to do the real work of leadership. Leaders who are busy driving buses, mowing the lawn, and mopping floors will not have enough time to monitor, mentor, and assist in the growth of coaches and athletes. The other danger in relying on service leadership is that a leader may not be able to “see the forest for the trees.” Had Major General Eisenhower been on the first transport ship to land at Normandy, the troops likely would have been inspired and felt valued, but Major General Eisenhower could not have effectively led the full invasion while he was pinned down on Utah Beach. While service leadership can be noble during an emergency, it is not an effective form of long-term leadership. A better form of early career leadership is servant leadership. Although there are similarities between service and servant leadership, there is one main difference: rather than providing the service like a service leader, a servant leader provides support to allow followers to do their jobs most effectively. Servant leaders are committed to the products provided by everyone in the organization. When new leaders come to an organization, they will not have all of the information necessary to make in-depth, full-organization decisions. They do, however, have the ability to listen to coaches and athletes, prioritize the coaches’ and athletes’ wants and needs, and provide collaborative suggestions for immediate improvement. In these cases, servant leaders need to be careful about making suggestions without enough information to be effective, but a display of willingness to provide support and understanding for followers is an essential first step towards building the sought after referent power. The tie that binds all styles of effective leadership is that of authentic leadership. Authentic leaders have a high level of self-awareness and are comfortable always displaying their “real” selves. Because of the legitimate power that comes along with a leadership role, leaders should not avoid being authentic out of fear of the imposter syndrome. Leaders can be open, honest, transparent, and empathetic from the first day of work. Authentic leaders know and understand their strengths and weaknesses, and they look for opportunities to grow their own leadership skills at the direction of their followers. A strong authentic leader will base his or her decisions on core philosophies and values and will provide a stable, consistent, and predictable brand of decision-making. While growing from service to servant leadership, any athletic director will be best served by being authentic. After being in the organization for some time, athletic directors can leverage their knowledge, experience, and personal growth into greater forms of leadership, like transformational, through the referent and expert power earned during their early years on the job. By following that path, athletic administrators can serve their true purpose as leaders: the growth and excellence of coaches and athletes. Northouse, P.G. (2010). Leadership: Theory and Practice (5th ed.). SAGE Publications, Inc: Los Angeles. |
Three Important Forms of Early Athletic Administration Leadership [NIAAA]
