How to shape your coaching behaviour

By joining the dots between transformational leadership theory and coaching practice, they have identified 11 behaviours that, if used frequently by coaches, could lead to positive outcomes for players - including social cohesion, personal and social skills, motivation and performance.

The behaviours (see Fig 1) range from eliciting athlete feedback, to discussing goals and expectations, and even discussing and modelling vulnerability and humility.

All of this research into coaching behaviours connects together, and highlights how important relationships between coaches and their players are, as well as the significance of the coach having a good awareness of what they do during practice and competition.

Drawing more on the work of Prof Cote, Jennifer Turnnidge and the team at Queen’s University have joined the dots between leadership and coaching research, illustrating transactional and transformational coaching behaviours in to the ‘full range leadership model’.

 

Fig 2 shows that adopting a ‘transformational’ approach highlights the coach is active within the delivery of the activity, and effective with the behaviours they are using.

Going back to an earlier point, this diagram is not saying that transformational is good, and transactional is bad, just that there is a difference - and that they will be more effective in different situations.

Recent research from the Football Association’s Women’s High Performance Centre, at St Mary’s University in Twickenham, has highlighted that players in the female game prefer a transformational approach to coaching - where their views and opinions are considered, the ‘why?’ which underpins practice design and matchday plans is shared, and where they play an active role in decision-making throughout the activities.

Without doubt, most coaches working with young people demonstrate a lot of the transformational coaching behaviours without realising.

 

"If coaches are honest about how effective their coaching is, it benefits everyone..."

However, if coaches are able to build their self-awareness and be honest with themselves on how effective their coaching is, it will benefit the players, environment and the energy of everyone taking part in the coaching practice.

 

coaching challenges

››  Read the 11 transformational behaviours

 

››  What is your super-strength and how do you play to it?

 

››  What do you want to be intentional with?

 

››  What do you want to work on?

 

››  Record yourself coaching (using both video and audio) and catch yourself in – look out for all the different behaviours you exhibit, and notice what works with your group. If you are struggling to record, ask someone else to watch you coach and give you feedback on your behaviours.

 

››  Reflect on your coaching context, and consider if your coaching behaviours add value to the environment.

 

six QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

So, what does all of this mean to your coaching practice? With so much information and insight available, it can be hard to work out what to do next. Here are a few open questions that could help you think fast and slow about your coaching behaviours:

 

• What are you hoping your group will achieve in the next session/game/block of work/season?  If you have a better understanding of this, you might be able to adapt your behaviours to help.

• What are the experiences you want the players to have?  If the players want to have lots of fun, this might be an indicator of the behaviours that will be most effective for this.

• What is the context of your coaching?  Is it about having fun, development, learning, winning, something else, or a combination of these? Context is vital for coaches to consider. Some things may work in senior football, but not translate to youth football (and vice-versa).

• Do your coaching practices align with your coaching behaviours?  If your practice is about decision-making and you spend a lot of time providing instruction, that might not be helpful.

• How aware are you of your own behaviours?  How do you know that what you think you know is right? Consider filming yourself while you coach and make a note of what you notice.

• What would the players say if you asked them: “How would you like me to coach you”?  If you were to ask your players - who we know are a pretty accurate barometer of their coaches’ behaviours - what would they say?