According to Northouse (2016, p. 238), “the model of servant leadership consists of three components: antecedent conditions, servant leader behaviors, and outcomes”. The main component of this leadership model is that the “leaders put followers first, share control with followers, and embrace their growth” (Northouse, 2016, p. 240). This is one of the few types of leadership theories where the leader shares control and cannot impose this type of leadership with followers who do not want to share in this theory.
Mentioned above, this model consists of antecedents, behaviors, and outcomes. This is similar to many studies on behavior of human beings. So, what’s key to this leadership theory is what specific behaviors the leader uses to be a servant leader. According to Northouse (2016), there are ten characteristics of a servant leaders. Those characteristics are: “listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, building community” (Northouse, 2016, p. 227-229).
When watching the National Hockey League (NHL) game, Chicago Blackhawks versus St. Louis Blues, which aired Monday 4/25/2016 at 8:00 pm eastern time, there were some examples of the servant leadership. I will use the chart listed on page 232 in the Northouse (2016) book to emphasize the antecedent, behaviors, and outcomes which I saw.
Looking at the chart you can see that I put that there was a fight in the game. For the servant leader behaviors I wrote that the Chicago teammates were displaying the behavior of helping followers grows and succeed. This may sound crazy but as you watch the game you can see that a player of the St. Louis Blues team took a weak shot at the goalie of the Blackhawks team once they had blocked the puck. So, the Blackhawks teammates were getting in a fight to stick up for their goalie and the weak shot that the Blues took basically after the play had finished. Now, I acknowledge that this may be a stretch but there are many fans who even feel that a fight is appropriate in sports such as hockey to get the point across.
I also did not have enough room in the chart but I feel that the commentators as well as the coaches are Servant leaders. Just as it was mentioned above, commentators and coaches are servant leaders because within their roles they “put followers first, share control with followers, and embrace their growth” (Northouse, 2016, p. 240). The commentators give credit to certain players and plays and really talk up the teams and their players to their followers and fans. Furthermore, coaches do a lot of their servant leadership behind the scene. They definitely share control with their players and embrace their growth and even put faith that the training they provide their players with will be enough to win the game. For the St. Louis Blues that was the case.
References
Northouse, P.G. (2016), Leadership: Theory and practice. (7th ed.) Thousand Oaks, CA. Sage Publications.