Mihai C. Bocarnea

The influence of famous athletes on health beliefs and practices: Mark McGwire, child abuse prevention, and androstenedione

When Mark McGwire broke Roger Mariss home run record in September of 1998, he was instantly declared an American hero and held up as a positive role model for teenagers and young adults. The extensive media attention focused on McGwire made the general public aware of his use of a muscle-building dietary supplement, Androstenedione. It also increased the publics awareness of McGwires public service to prevent child abuse. The present research assesses audience involvement with McGwire through parasocial interaction and identification, and the effects of that involvement on audience knowledge of and attitudes toward Androstenedione and child abuse prevention. Results indicate parasocial interaction with an athlete regarded as a public role model likely leads to audience identification with that person, which in turn promotes certain attitudes and beliefs. In this case, parasocial interaction and identification with Mark McGwire was strongly associated with knowledge of Androstenedione, intended use of the supplement, and concern for child abuse. Implications of this research for featuring celebrities in health communication campaigns are discussed.

Servant Leadership Theory

Valid and reliable measurement instruments grounded in theory are essential to move the field of servant leadership forward. Since the turn of the millennium, starting with Laub’s (1999) Organizational Leadership Assessment (OLA), we have seen several instruments enter the field – for example, Page and Wong (2000; Wong and Pace, 2003), Dennis (2004), Barbuto and Wheeler (2006), Liden et al. (2008), and Sendjaya et al. (2008). This chapter describes the development and validation of a measure based on Patterson’s (2003) theory of servant leadership: the Servant Leadership Assessment Instrument (SLAI) (Dennis and Bocarnea, 2005). Through its direct link to Patterson’s theory ( including the constructs of love, humility, altruism, vision, trust, service, and empowerment), this instrument allows for a test of the proposed theoretical framework in various populations. The chapter will address in detail the development of the 42-item Likert-type Servant Leadership Assessment Instrument. Information about its reliability, validity, and availability will also be included. Furthermore, the chapter will offer a thorough review of current servant leadership literature on the usage of the SLAI in leadership research. Finally, the SLAI will be compared and contrasted with other servant leadership instruments.

Seeking Others’ Interests: Leading with Goodness

With leadership scholars frequently emphasizing transformational, ethical, and even servant leadership, it is still difficult to imagine an effective leader characterized by goodness. Leaders are envisioned as strong, charismatic, even supporting at times, yet their role in relationship to followers or even organizational stakeholders seems to leave little space for them being seen as good. Despite the seeming disconnect between this virtue and the conceptualization of leadership practice, the definition of goodness as a positive quality characterized by interest in the welfare of others, frequently manifested through generosity, does not necessarily preclude its role in a leader’s character. This chapter examines this specific type of care for others and attempts to find appropriate application in leadership theory while providing possible practices in which goodness can be manifested for the benefit of individuals and organizations.

Unusual Power: Leading with Gentleness

While gentleness is not typically on a list of leadership characteristics, we can see from the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday that the concept of a gentle leader has both Old and New Testament roots. This chapter will analyze this type of gentle leadership that is able to flourish in the midst of resistance and injustice while finding leniency in the midst of judgment. The contemporary model of social power base theory provides a framework for applying these ancient insights to contemporary leaders. It is out of this comparison that not only a more fascinating understanding of biblical gentleness is seen but also how gentleness becomes exemplified by the cultural desire to see gentleness that offsets stern laws.

Validity and Reliability of the Nine Scales

This chapter reports the validity and reliability of the nine scales using the Essential Servant Leadership Behaviors (ESLB) scale to test for convergent validity, Cronbach alpha scores for scale reliability, and pre-post t-tests to show test-retest reliability. Pearson r scores for the nine scales which ranged from .83 to .91 demonstrated strong correlations. Cronbach alpha scores ranged from .92 to .98 showing strong scale reliability. The pre-post t-tests showed no significant difference between the pre- and post-tests. The chapter recommends future research studies to further test for validity and leadership development longitudinal studies to test changes in scale results over time.

Use of the Scales

This chapter provides suggestions for item wording if using the nine scales as a 360-degree evaluation. The chapter also recommends both bar graphs and radar charts to graphically present the results. Finally, the chapter gives two hypothetical examples of managers’ results from the nine scales and how to interpret the charts. These examples may be useful for conducting leadership development programs.

The Practice of Helpfulness: Leading with Kindness

The contemporary trend to emotional intelligence and leader empathy provides a strong connection to human virtues such as kindness. Similarly, kindness has enjoyed contemporary popularity through the mantra “random acts of kindness.” Particularly useful in empathic leadership styles, kindness is a key to providing emotional support, helping subordinates grow, putting subordinates first, and ethical behavior—all aspects of a range of empirically proven leadership styles. This chapter analyzes kindness within a biblical framework. Beginning with the narrative of showing kindness to foreigners, kindness is shown as general helpfulness, but more specifically as uprightness in relations with others or being helpful or beneficial to others. This chapter examines how kindness can be utilized within contemporary organizational leadership.

Something to Celebrate: Leading with Joy

One of the keys to effective leadership is a practice that gets little attention: celebration. Leaders celebrate. They celebrate success, excellence, accomplishments, and, more importantly, they celebrate their followers. The Biblical understanding of celebration is grounded in the concept of joy. The analysis will show that joy is indicative of an inner state of gladness and the communal state of rejoicing. The analysis will begin with a review of the Biblical exemplar of the establishment of the Feast of Purim after God’s deliverance of the Jews in Esther 9 and continue with a concise study of the Greek word for joy, chara, and of relevant New Testament and Old Testament contexts of the word, specifically an investigation of the relationship between joy, the establishment of communal celebration, and the development of traditions. The analysis will show how communal celebration helps to establish coalitions, encourage cooperation, and develop organizational positivity.

Building Coalitions: Leading with Peace

Jesus said: “Blessed are the peace-makers” (Matt. 5:9). In contemporary organizational leadership contexts, effective teamwork requires connecting people through social contracts. Effective leaders create a culture of collaboration whereby followers develop mutual respect from which high levels of engagement and productivity come. Peace is highlighted throughout the Old and New Testaments. The analysis will show that relational harmony is an outcome of respect, trust, support, and care. The analysis will examine the covenant relationship between David and Jonathan, as well as other Old and New Testament texts, to demonstrate the nuanced nature of the Biblical understanding of peace. The analysis will show both the antecedents to and effects of peace in the contemporary organizational context, focusing on building trust, mutual respect, organizational harmony, and collaboration.

Calm in the Storm: Leading with Patience

In recent years, leadership issues related to ethics (and, most prominently, ethical failures) have been frequently drawn into the public spotlight. Concurrently, leadership research has shifted toward virtue-based theories and the consideration of leader character. Although patience has been rarely discussed in the context of leadership, the important of patience can be understood considering its role as a virtue. The virtue of patience describes a condition of tranquility while waiting for an outcome or persevering under provocation. Although patience can perhaps most clearly be exemplified in the Judeo-Christian context as the characteristic of a God that did not abandon His people despite their frequent disloyal treatment of Him, this virtue can be a powerful tool for proactive, rather than reactive, leaders. This chapter considers a biblical understanding of patience and how this characteristic can be incorporated into modern leadership contexts.