| Summary: | This research investigates the level of servant leadership within Rhodes University sport clubs. The goals of this research are to assess the perception the club members have of their chairperson and to key identify areas of development. The sport clubs at Rhodes University are partially run by chairpersons who are voted into the position by his or her peers of a sports club. The chairpersons work alongside Rhodes University employees who are a part of the Sports Administration team to oversee the running, scheduling and finances of the club. The sports clubs are representative of Rhodes University and it is the chairperson’s responsibility to ensure the club is lead and run effectively. Robert Greenleaf coined the term servant leader in the 1970s (Greenleaf, 1997). The servant leader is a leader who is driven by his or her followers, as leadership involves a leader serving his or her followers first and foremost (Greenleaf, 1977). The leader takes on a role that is supportive and contributes to their personal as well as their professional achievements (Smith, Montagno and Kuzmenko, 2004). A questionnaire consisting of 27 questions was drafted, of which were four demographic questions. A 5-point Likert Scale was used in order for the participants to respond to the questions. The questionnaire was drawn from a number of questionnaires available in literature on leadership and adapted to suit Rhodes University sports clubs. The questionnaire was distributed personally by the researcher, as well as through an online questionnaire. There were a total of 153 candidates who participated in the study. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data. The majority of the respondents had the perceptions that their chairperson displayed characteristics of a servant leader. Majority of the participants were in agreement of the questions asked in the questionnaire, which focused on many servant leadership qualities. The results will be handed over to the Head of Sports Administration in order for them to get an idea of their leaders’ characteristics and areas where they can improve upon.
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