Blog Post #4

1) What are the strengths and weaknesses of servant leadership?

• Strength: A good servant leader cares about his people, followers, or - in sports - his athletes. He is looking after them , making sure they're taken care of, are successful, and meet their goals or a team's goals.
• Weaknesses: Servant leadership can be troublesome when a leader cares about his/her followers too much and "loses track of his own leadership and meeting his own goals. Just "serving" to the followers won't make you a great leader. You have to make sure that the goal of an organization (i.e. an Athletic Department or Pro Ball Team) is met, too besides your followers or athletes being taken care of. The well-being of your followers is important but one has to be a "tough" leader sometimes to reach a bigger goal.

2) How do you think servant leadership looks in sport? In Business?

•  I believe servant leadership looks great and works in most sport settings. Recent studies (Hammermeister et al., 2008) actually show that servant leadership and its "democratic approach" between athletes and coaches works well in the way that these athletes are tough, motivated and happy with their performances if a coach is clearly  showing that he wants his athletes to succeed. A coach who cares and puts his own interest below that of an athlete or it's organization is great in sport. On the other side, servant leadership in Business is not the go-to-approach more the majority of businesses. In the "real world" where money, efficiency, productivity and time plays a huge role a servant approach is probably not good for a business's success. Yes, a leader should care to a certain degree about his/her employee's but the need of profit and getting maximum gains pushes the servant leadership characteristics to the side. I could see some form of servant leadership in business, though. Tech companies like Apple, Google or Facebook really emphasize on the care and well-being of their employees and they offer a great working environment and benefits for their employees. People like Steve Jobs at Apple (past) or Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook (present) show some servant leadership characteristics in my opinion. 
  

3) Which leadership style (servant, transactional, transformational) would work best during times of change?

• Transformational would be best. It really sets a standard for either a new environment or a new/changed organization and aims to encourage and empower members/followers. Bass & Riggio (2006) report that transformational leaders have "high levels morals and ethical" and therefore create a big follower base since people look up to them.

4) Which of the 11 attributes of servant leadership (Russel & Stone article) is most helpful to coaches?

• That's a tough choice. I have to chose between Communication and Teaching....and would say Teaching. I think you have to be a good teacher first and foremost. Being able to tell and teach students/athletes about a sport, a game or anything else is the first step. If you can teach it and have your athletes or followers understand you then you already made a huge step into the direction of success. Obviously, the other 10 points are important, too. After teaching, I would chose communication as the 2nd most important helpful attribute. Simply because a coach who is super smart but can't "connect" with his/her athletes won't be much successful because athletes need feedback, encouragement etc. from their coach.