Whether via a few blog posts or during presentations on coaching I have given, I have often shared an anecdote from my first coaching certification course. I had completed my first full year as a head coach, won the provincials and finished 4th at nationals, all with limited coaching experience and absolutely no certification. My club and the provincial federation made it clear that if I wished to continue, I was required to obtain the required certification level for elite women's soccer. Due to me playing background and the success on my first year, I was fast-tracked to be able to complete everything in 1 year. I figured, how much will I really learn?
Well, right away I learned two very important things, first of all, I learned how much I didn't know. Coaching involved so much more than I had ever imagined. This dose of reality has stuck with me ever since and I have always taken steps to improve myself as a coach. Secondly and most importantly for the purpose of today's blog post, I vividly remember one of the very first things the course instructor said; " Without athletes, there is no need for coaches. You are there for them and you will always need to find ways to remain relevant to their needs". More so than the first point, this has always stuck with me. I have always felt an obligation to put athletes first and provide them with an experience that goes beyond results. In almost 30 years of coaching, I have worked with hundreds of athletes at various age groups and levels. Among all these athletes, some probably liked or really like me, some probably didn't very much or at all and a majority most like fell somewhere in between. When I started coaching, I was working with adult women, pretty much in my age category, some older, some younger, most of them being friends of mine. Just as refresher, you can use this link to see why this is the case from a prior post. a-male-coaching-female-soccer-0-less-credible.html Once I move on from coaching at the club level, I went to coach athletes between the ages of 14 and 19 on the provincial teams and national training center and finally for the last 16 years, working at the university level, I worked with student-athletes anywhere from 18 to 23 while each season, I got older and therefore the age gap increased with each passing year. The point ? well, due to changes in the ages, competitive levels of the athletes I worked with, the changes in technology, expectations, and the fact that I aged meant that how I approached my coaching style and interacted with athletes required change and adaptability. It’s always been said that change is inevitable. It’s true in life and it’s especially true in sports. Teams, players, coaches and everything about the sport themselves all go through changes, big and small. With change inevitable, the leaders and coaches who adapt and stay ahead of the curve are the ones that survive and thrive. Every coach who has worked over numerous years has seen countless changes along the way, but what has made them successful is knowing when and how to change with what comes. As the level at which you might coach changes so might the expectations, training regimens and skills levels of the athletes involved change. Like the athletes who play them, the sports themselves have changed over time. It’s been pretty clear as to how the athletes and sports have improved over time, with one needing to look no further than how technology and knowledge gathering is used in sports. Technology has given the coaches who choose to use it an advantage in a number of ways. So when you take all this together, it comes down to one real fact. Can you fight the changes, continue coaching the same way year after year? Taking all these factors into account, it is inevitable that it has an impact on the sport and therefore the reason some coaches continue to have success over time is the fact they’ve changed their own approach, too. This is certainly true for me. The coach that I was when I first started out isn’t the same as who I was. Yes, there is a certain fundamental consistency in terms of my values of style, but I have adapted a number of times over the years. Like with anything else, initially as a new coach coming in there were things I simply hadn't yet experienced. I think I got a little more relaxed in the role and experienced different situations it allowed me face the challenges as they came, I think that helped, not only myself but the athletes, too. Things change in waves,. Sometimes you see them coming and you can plan out how to deal with them and other times, you can't so you just have to hang in there. Having done this a while, I learned it’s about a lot more than that sport and that specific season. It’s about about always being willing to the put the athletes' interests ahead of my own and about what I might teach them that could be applicable for the rest of their lives. Being an athlete centered coach is about coaching with the needs of the athlete foremost in your priorities. It requires that coaches are willing and able to choose a coaching style that is most suitable for their athlete’s needs. Being willing and able to adapt your behavior increases your ability to communicate and build relationships with other people. Coaches with adaptability in sport are both flexible and versatile. Of course, our level of adaptability can be stronger in some situations than others. For example, many coaches tend to be more adaptable with athletes that they know less and are newly joining their team. This is because the coach is usually focused on building rapport with the athlete and is also very focused on trying to work out the most effective way to coach them. As well, many coaches are less adaptable with athletes that have been on their team for some time and have become very familiar with. Adaptability in sport is also compromised when coaches are in a competition environment versus a training environment. As the level of perceived stress increases, thinking times are reduced and instinctual reactions increase. In addition, and what is very interesting is, is that often times people view themselves as more flexible and versatile than they actually are. That’s because we all aspire to those behaviors and we know that being flexible and adaptable are qualities of exceptional coaches. Most people judge themselves on how they intend to act as well as on how they do act. But unfortunately, our actions don’t always match our intentions. Another reason for the gap between coaches ideal versus our actual level of adaptability is that it’s not easy. So if we talk about a coach being both flexible and versatile, what does this mean exactly, To start with, let me pull out standard definitions for each. I googled the definitions for each and using the Merriam-Webster site, chose what I consider the most relevant definitions for each; flexible - characterized by a ready capability to adapt to new, different, or changing requirements versatile - embracing a variety of subjects, fields, or skills So simply put a coach ( or person for that matter ) who is both flexible and versatile has the traits of being able to adapt to new or changing requirements for a variety of skills or areas. Great, so now specifically, how does this reflect on coaching? Well a coach who is flexible will generally have a fairly high level of self confidence in the sense of trusting their own judgement and ability to find solutions even in moments of perceived stress balanced with the ability to accept opinions and practices that are different from their own. These coaches are able to get the best parts from various styles and make it their own. Coaches who never waver from their coaching style may attract like-minded athletes but they will not suit the needs of most teams or squads who have healthy diversity of athletes. Successful coaches have a certain level of empathy with their athletes. It goes beyond just acknowledging the joys and pains of their athletes but feeling a shared investment in the emotional impact of participation in sport. This then ties into always maintaining a high level of respect for the athletes. It is the sincere desire to understand and consider athlete’s choices, commitments and needs in relation to a coach's own. Athlete centered coaching is about meeting the needs of the athlete despite personal preferences. On the other side of the flexibility spectrum are the negative traits that undermine a coach’s adaptability. If you recognize any of these in yourself, try to improve your adaptability by eliminating this negative tendency from your coaching style and behavior. These will include rigidity, competition with your peers and athletes, discontent, being perceived as unapproachable, and having a difficulty with ambiguity. A coach who displays these traits will often have trouble have the flexibility to adapt to changes. So now that covers the traits of a coach who is flexible, who can adapt fairly easily and quickly. So what are the traits that apply to versatility ? A big part of coaching is having the resilience to overcome setbacks, barriers and limited resources. Mainly, it has to do with an emotional strength and firm belief in the process. If you keep on going until you succeed, that’s resilience. Successful coaches all have a clear vision of their process. They know where they are, where they want to get to and how they want to get there. Coaches who have the power to imagine, be creative, and suggest alternatives are going to be more influential than coaches who don’t have this ability. As I got older and the age gap widened between myself and the athletes, one are that I tried to be very aware about and probably struggled the most with, was relating to my athletes. As middle-aged man, it was not always easy to put myself in the shoes of a young adult. This is an absolutely critical skill for every coach – the ability to notice what is going on with your athletes. It can be as simple as noticing when your athletes are getting bored or sensing that now is not the right time to suggest a technical change. It’s knowing when to act and when not to act. It means paying attention to more than your own needs. It means that just because it doesn't make sense to you as an individual, it might be very important to the athletes. One obvious trait required for a coach to have the versatility to adapt quickly and that might seem obvious but isn't always is competence. Competent coaches have a desire to be expert in their sport and in the field of coaching. To a large degree, developing expertise is an attitude. No coach can know everything. Coaching is too multi-faceted. What is important is to know where to obtain information, using all the available tools to get the answers needed. Great coaches find the answers. Great coaches accept that things change and what worked in the past might no longer work. For me, as example, it was the use of video analysis as part of coaching. With the means available, I considered it too labor intensive and yes sometimes boring to pour over game film and try and bring out teaching points whether on our own team play or for that of opponents, and share with the team. Having as technology changed and it became easier, not to mention that the athletes themselves showed a strong desire to have more visual feedback, I took the time to learn a new software platform we had available. It wasn't about what I thought of game film use, but about what was best for the team. This also ties into being open to self correction. This means that you ask for feedback from your athletes on your performance relative to their needs. Too many coaches are defensive or insecure to ask for feedback from the athletes and not many coaches will initiate this review in their domain. Only with feedback can non-productive patterns in your behavior be rectified. Their is no downside to getting feedback from the team, if positive it serves are reinforcement and validation that as a coach you are on the right track, when negative, if you remain open minded, it shows how you can get better. Seems so easy, but the truth is most coaches will have show some of the following negative traits at points during their coaching career; Subjectiveness- the closed minded attitude that who one sees it is how it is, bluntness- simply unfiltered reply to any suggestion, resistance to any form of change, a single-mindedness that the personal needs outweigh those of the group and a certain level of unreasonable risk-taking where the coach jumps to a decision without seeking additional information. Every coach has a bit of all those traits for flexibility and versatility. If it was easy to just incorporate the positives and avoid the negatives, everyone and anyone who wanted to coach, could and would be successful. Developing coaching adaptability allows one to understand how different types of athletes would like to be coached. It means adjusting a coaching style to be more in line with the athletes' preferences. The effectively adaptable coach meets the athlete’s needs and their own. Always remember, without the athletes, the role of the coach is not required. And for the record, most of this post can apply to anyone, in any type of leadership role, it isn't always about coaching sport. until next time.................
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AuthorAfter many years of coaching at various levels and with different teams, I thought I would share some of my experiences and thoughts about coaching. Archives
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