At every level of sport, coaching has never been more challenging. What has contributed to this?
Establishing critically important safe-sport guidelines that set a new standard for all coaches to follow. Returning to sport after the disruption of a global pandemic. Learning to coach a generation of young people with historically high levels of access to information. And, particularly for youth sport coaches, managing more engaged parents.
As someone who spends most of my time working with coaches and thinking about the essence of coaching excellence, now is the time to be clear on what is required to be an outstanding and impactful coach. It can be done in parallel paths to making sport safer for all.
What is required to Coach Hard?
Coaches can be direct and push athletes to achieve more when two things are in place: strong relationships and competency. Like a sliding scale, the more advanced these are, the harder the coach can push. Genuine, competent, relationship-focused coaches can be more direct, challenge more effectively and ultimately help athletes thrive. Coaches who invest time and thoughtful engagement with their athletes build trust. This trust will allow athletes to differentiate between being attacked versus receiving direction and feedback that will ultimately enhance their experience and performance.
Chinks in the armor related to competency and the relationship between coach and athlete degrade a coach’s ability to help an athlete embrace gaps, understand the work required to take the next step and what sacrifices are required for a team to be even better.
What is coaching excellence?
It helps to define excellence to better understand where Coaching Hard fits in.
At the heart of coaching excellence is a coach’s ability to direct and provide clarity for athletes to perform to their best. Impactful coaches contribute to performances athletes would not have otherwise experienced. This has and will always be the case.
For many reasons, the concept of directing or “pushing” an athlete is front of mind, as this is where effective coaching and psychological safety intersect.
Taylor, Ashford, and Collins completed a fascinating study in 2022 (Article) that investigated psychological safety and the athlete perspective in a high-performance setting. Emphasis on “high-performance”. It is well worth a read as it presents a case that a pristine, psychologically safe environment is not one that allows athletes to thrive, nor is it one that high-performance athletes desire. At least not the ones in this study. What is clear from this piece of research, is that clarity, competency, and relationship are an essential components of impactful coaching.
Many believe that the new landscape has left our coaches unable to communicate directly and take reasonable steps that will contribute to athletes advancing and coming closer to reaching their full potential. I’ve spoken to many coaches who are “afraid” to coach directly and with intention. They aren’t sure what they can do and are, frankly, choosing the safe route.
To achieve their very best performances and have a rewarding experience, athletes require clarity. Clarity on technique, tactics, personal goals, as well as team roles. And the list goes on. There is more to coaching than clarity, but it links strongly to the concept of Coaching Hard.
Let’s never forget that coaches are at the center of the athlete experience
For those of us who love sport, care about the athlete journey, and know that coaches are at the center of holistic athlete development, we need to get curious. What is coaching excellence in the context of my sport? Where does clear, direct coaching fit? If you are a leader of a sport organization, have you clearly defined coaching excellence and what your expectations are of your coaches to fully align? How can we celebrate sport environments that are caring, clear and push athletes to be their best? Making sport safer, more meaningful and rewarding for all athletes starts with the coach. Helping them understanding the power of the sliding scale is a great first step!
