Examining of the relationship between servant leadership behaviors in sports and motivation to participate in sports in the sports centers

The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between the servant leadership behaviors of the coaches (trainers) in sports centers and the motivations of the members to participate in sports. A total of 300 individuals, 45.3% (136) females and 54.7% (164) males, from Gaziantep and Osmaniye provinces participated in the research. In this research, a questionnaire consisting of three parts was used as a data collection tool. It is included demographic information in the first part , in the second part the Servant Leadership Scale in Sports developed by Cerit(2005), and in the third part, the "Sport Participation Motivation Scale" developed by Gill, Gross and Huddleston(1983) and this scale is adapted into Turkish by Çelebi(29).In the research, descriptive statistical analyzes were used to analyze demographic variables, servant leadership behaviors in sports and motivation levels of participation in sports. Since the data did not show normal distribution, Wann Whitney U test was used in the analysis of two-category variables, Kruxal-Wallis H test was used in the analysis of variables in more than three categories, Spearman Rho Correlation analysis was used in relational analyses. According to the results of the relational analysis of the research, a very weak negative relationship was found between servant leadership behaviours in sports and motivation to participate in sports. As a result of these analyzes, it can be said that increasing the servant leadership behaviors in sports centers will increase the motivation of sports center members to participate in sports.