Leadership Principles in Sports What

Leadership Principles in Sports

What are the important concepts of communication that best support the values of leadership needed in today's sporting world? Since sports is really just a mirror of society, research into various kinds of leadership in the corporate world and the community fits well into the sporting genre as well.

In Albert Mehrabian's book Silent Messages (Mehrabian 53) the author alludes to a confusing kind of communication called "psychological disturbance." Loaded with damaging inconsistency, it amounts to nice words which are spoken but the body language elicits negativity. This kind of communication causes a "psychological disturbance," the author advises; an example is mommy saying in a lilting voice, "Come and give your mommy a kiss," but when the child arrives, she turns away from because his hands are dirty. "[the child] does not know what to do. He loses either way." If he shrinks back and rejects his mother, she'll be upset, but he doesn't want to risk coming closer and being rejected. This example could play out in a coaching environment too; the coach is praising the player with familiar words of enthusiasm, but his body language tells the player he is disappointed and is going to start another player in the next game.

Authors Lawrence J. Lad and David Luechauer quote Juana Bordas as saying that Servant-Leadership has "very old roots in many of the indigenous cultures." Servant-Leader founder Robert Greenleaf writes (Spears 1) the Servant-Leader is a servant first. He or she must have the natural feeling that he or she wants to be of service. Not lead, not follow, but serve first. Then, "conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead," Greenleaf writes. "The best test is: do those served grow as persons; do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?"

What servant-leadership does in part is do away with the autocratic, hierarchical kinds of leadership, and approach leadership from a more ethical point-of-view, a sharing in the decision-making process so that all are on board when the whistle blows and the game begins. The basic idea works for sports as well as for business. In the old days, coaches and managers viewed people as objects, but that view is shifting, in part due to the concepts of Servant-leadership. The central meaning came to Greenleaf after reading Hermann Hesse's short novel Journey to the East; Greenleaf concluded that a great leader first serves others, and "true leadership (Spears 3) emerges from those whose primary motivation is a deep desire to help others." By first serving, then leading, the leader has a hands-on grasp of what the priorities are, and do those being served (whether baseball players or office staffers) become healthier while being served? Do they grow as persons, become smarter and more likely "themselves to become servants?"