Assignment One: Follow the Leader
Hello everyone, welcome to my first official week as a Master’s Student here at Trinity Western University! I’m excited to share with everyone my first assignment which involves writing about a leader we each admire and how their leadership influences us. My understanding for the purpose of this assignment is to articulate what leadership means to us by describing how our chosen leader exemplifies the values that we envision in an ideal leader. As always, I’m looking to strengthen my writing skills and learn how to create a website so please leave some helpful tips or feedback about the progress of my blog below.
Leadership, as a concept, has always been difficult and ambiguous to define as there are so many ideas from different people about what leadership is. But throughout time, there’s been at least four components of the overall definition of leadership that remained consistent; as described by Northouse in his textbook Leadership: that leadership is a process, it involves influence, it occurs in groups, and involves a common goals. To me personally, influence is what really stands out as a central tenet to leadership. There’s many people from different backgrounds that I consider hugely influential such as Elon Musk, Michael Jordan, Dr. Allyson Jule, and my Dad but this time I chose to write about one of my biggest heroes growing up, Steve Nash.
Steve Nash is widely regarded as the greatest basketball player to have ever come out of Canada. Although he’s won many awards that the great players before him have won, what stood out to me about his legacy are the lasting contributions he’s made on and off the court after his hall of fame career. Despite all the odds, such as coming from a little known place in the basketball world or being a below average athlete by NBA standards (he was only about 6’1 compared to the league average height of 6’6 and could not even dunk the ball), he crafted a legendary career by literally influencing the playing style of NBA teams today through the high octane, fastbreak offense he led with his former team, the Phoenix Suns. Although it’s easy to see why he was so influential as a player to the game of basketball, it’s his off the court work and interactions with others that stood him apart from many of the greatest athletes.
Steve Nash began to spread his influence more when he created his Instagram account (https://www.instagram.com/stevenash/) to give fans more access into his life. Some of the ventures he shared to followers included starting a charity foundation (https://www.instagram.com/stevenashfdn/?hl=en) that serves underprivileged kids in the inner city, managing Canada’s national basketball program, holding private training lessons for kids living in the Greater Los Angeles area as well as for NBA Players, and helping to propel green initiatives and human rights movements. Given all his work and his public affairs, he’s also very private in his own respects. You can see this from his social media accounts that he greatly values just being a normal family guy. From following Nash closely, my observation is that Nash tends to lead mostly through his actions. He connects people towards initiatives mostly through his platform as a star athlete. Sports in general have the power to teach and hone the importance of work ethic, attitude, and teamwork which can translate to everything you do in life and Nash is the embodiment of this on the court as people everywhere strive to replicate his work ethic and mindset in sports and in their lives. Off the court, his activities include bringing people together for celebrity basketball and soccer games to raise proceeds for his charity foundation, attending human rights protests, voicing his thoughts on controversial political topics such as the Trump administration or the War in Iraq, or advocating for better environmental practices by being selective of the companies he partners with.
It’s clear Nash lives what he preaches and his actions have done a lot in influencing people. However, one way I think he could further promote the initiatives he’s campaigned for is by publicly speaking more in forums or conventions. Nash is in a position were he can facilitate change and rally more support through public speaking because of the platform he stands on. Even if he isn’t necessarily an expert on the topics he advocates for, people will listen simply because of who he is and the positive public opinion about him. Athletes such as Lebron James, Colin Kaepernick, or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar have been vocal to the public about their opinion towards human rights controversies in America which have influenced other athletes to speak out on controversies they feel strongly about. If Steve Nash somehow came across this blog post, I would empower him as well to speak more about the initiatives he believes in as he has the referent power to help advance society.
Through watching some of his interviews and his play style, I can tell that Nash uses the transformational servant style of leadership which is what I also try to model in my daily life. Many of his teammates enjoyed the most successful parts of their playing career statistically when playing with Nash as his playing style allowed teammates to impact the game more so than they would playing on other teams. In his interviews, Nash also talks about being consciously aware of empowering his teammates to feel like their impacting the game. By placing his teammates in great positions to score, he and the team got a lot more in return because his teammates were engaged in the game, gave more energy on defense, hustled, or shared the ball more amongst each other. Many of the techniques that athletes such as myself and Nash use to get the most out of their teammates can be translated into the workplace, to social groups, or even with family. How I try to implement his example in teams I play on or in my workplace is by always encouraging, trying to create an environment where my peers can openly voice their questions or concerns, sharing information as much as I can, consciously allowing others to be involved in the decision making processes, or allowing others to speak and take the lead.
As a leader, Steve Nash was successful during his playing career in leading his teams to many regular and postseason wins. His playing style allowed teammates to feel empowered in bringing out their true talent and as a result, the team collectively enjoyed successes. The way he played also inspired basketball players to play in a similar manner and hopefully translated some of the important qualities of being an athlete to their personal lives. Off the court, he’s used his platform through social media to narrate his story on youth development, political issues, and environmental concerns. Hopefully through this post, readers can look past the awards and accolades of Steve Nash the athlete and instead, begin to implement the examples of Steve Nash, the social entrepreneur, into their own lives.
References
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: theory and practice (Seventh ed.). Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
