Evaluating coaches' servant leadership style and how it affects young athletes' word-of-mouth communication about their club
Keywords:
servant leadership style, young athletes, sport coaches, team sport, oral communicationAbstract
The helpful leadership style has begun to be utilized in sports by coaches, bringing about many positive results in the psychology of athletes, their performance and their development. The aim of this research was to examine how athletes in a club that serves the sports of soccer and volleyball evaluate the helpful leadership style of their coaches and to explore whether coaches' evaluation of a helpful leadership style can predict how athletes evaluate their verbal communication for the club. To achieve the aim of the study, a survey of 240 young athletes participating in the sports of football and volleyball of a club based in Thessaloniki, Greece was conducted. The Revised Servant Leadership Profile for Sport (RSLP-S) questionnaire, formulated by Hammermeister and colleagues (2008), was chosen to collect the data for assessing servant leadership. The questionnaire consists of three factors for assessing servant leadership: a) trust/confidence, with 11 variables (e.g. e.g., the coach encourages team spirit by conveying enthusiasm and confidence); b) humility, with 6 variables (e.g., the coach does not believe that his/her position is one of power); and c) service, with 5 variables (e.g., the coach serves others and does not expect anything in return). A search of the relevant literature did not find that it has been used before in Greece, so all the procedures for translating and adapting it to a Greek population of athletes were followed. For the evaluation of word-of-mouth communication, three of the four variables of Oliver's (1999) questionnaire were selected, which study children's intention to recommend the club to others, to make positive comments about it. The results showed that children in the academy and playing sections of the studied club rated the factors positively: "Trust/confidence" and "Service" of the helpful leadership style and moderately the factor "Humility". They also positively evaluate their willingness to communicate with others their satisfaction with their membership in this union. Finally, it was found that the "Trust/confidence" and "Service" factors of the helpful leadership style positively predict young athletes' verbal communication. The results of this study ought to be discussed in detail, formulating actions to develop the helpful leadership style by club coaches, enhancing the athletes' oral communication and, as a result, their loyalty to the club, specifically, and to sport, in general.
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