7 ways to maintain a high-quality coach-athlete relationship
Relationships are an important part of our lives as humans. We are social creatures who rely on support and connection with others to be well. One of the most intense universal human fears is being rejected by others. Rejection means a lack of safety to the survival part of our brain. A lack of safety triggers a stress response in our bodies and minds. Ideally, we can all experience a sense of connection and belonging in the spaces we show up in.
This includes sport!
Athletes are constantly on watch, being critiqued, and trying to improve. It can be a pressure-cooker, where they have to perform perfectly to be worthy of belonging and connection. Athletes are continually at risk of rejection on account of a poor performance, getting injured, or failing in some other way. This fear of rejection is at the core of a lot of athletes’ perfectionism and performance anxiety.
Naturally, one factor that can help ease some performance anxiety is having high-quality coach-athlete relationships! I give so much kudos to the coaches I had when I was young. They were also my teachers, neighbors, and friends parents. I had multiple relationships with them and knew them enough to trust them, as adults. These early coaches are part of I figure helped me stay in sport, as a teenage girl.
Since performance anxiety is common for young women athletes, I wanted to share seven strategies to help maintain said relationships. Each of these strategies can be encouraged from both the coach and the athlete. I am going to write from the perspective of what you can do as a coach. With that, it is also important to acknowledge that relationships have two sides and both parties have to be committed to making it a supportive space.
1 Conflict management… be both proactive and reactive. Proactive conflict management strategies include setting clear expectations for practices and games, as well as communicating consequences if expectations are not met. With that, expectations need to be set appropriately. An example of appropriate expectations is to expect your athletes to arrive at competitions on time or attend every practice (unless they are unwell). An expectation that may not be appropriate is to expect athletes to set personal bests or win every competition. Set expectations for actions and behaviors athletes have control over, rather than for performance outcomes that various factors will contribute to. If an athlete fails to meet clearly communicated expectations, consequences may include reduced playing time, apologizing to teammates, or deselection in future years.
Reactive conflict management strategies include accommodating the needs of the athletes or compromising to find an acceptable solution in collaboration with the athletes.Regardless of what the conflict is, your role, as a coach, is to approach a conversation with compassion. You may take some time to let emotions settle. Then it is important for you to acknowledge it. Some other considerations you might make are:
finding a private space
engage in active listening to truly hear the other person
focus on finding solutions to the problem
develop a plan for what is next to reduce future conflicts
2 Openness… refers to athletes feelings safe to talk about their feelings. Athletes want to be able to talk about issues that are not directly related to sport. They want to be able to talk about friends, family, and work. What athletes need for their coach is to feel safe coming to you with any topic and for their coach to work to understand how the athlete feels.
3 Motivation… refers to both a coach’s motivation to work with athletes and how coaches motivate their athletes. Athletes benefit from trusting their coach has the skills and abilities to help the athlete reach their goals. As a coach, work to be confident in your skills and demonstrate your knowledge to the athlete. With that, athletes also need to show effort during training and competitions. For athletes to stay engaged, they benefit from opportunities to engage in competitive fun and experience success. If both parties are committed to growth, they can work to motivate each other.
4 Positivity… can be a broad term, with multiple and varied meanings. For the sake of the coach-athlete relationship, positive refers to being adaptable, being fair, and being compassionate when managing outside pressures. Each athlete is their own unique human, who comes with unique goals, values, and preferences. Do your best to adapt to what the athletes needs based on what they are working towards and how they respond to feedback. Treat athletes fairly (see Conflict Management) and, perhaps, equitably, ensuring all athletes are given what they need. Be aware of sport-life challenges (see Openness) so you can manage them more effectively, and reduce how much they impact the coach-athlete relationship.
5 Advice… Advice refers to giving opinions to help problem solve, and offering feedback in a supportive way. With a desire to build quality relationships, reward feedback is essential. In other words, offer praise to athletes. Women athletes can experience self-critical spirals that make it difficult to thrive. So, praise is helpful. As a coach, you will also need to offer constructive feedback. When offering constructive feedback, it is important that opinions are strictly about performance, rather than about character. Advice may also go beyond feedback. It can include advice about how to navigate sport-related challenges, such as conflict with teammates or the team recruitment process. Open and honest communication is valuable, provided it is done with compassion.
6 Support… Support refers to showing commitment to the coach-athlete relationship. This includes showing care for both sport and personal aspects of the athlete. To support athletes, coaches can offer assurance to remind the athlete that you are committed to them and their growth. You can offer sport-specific support, including being emotionally-ready after challenges, like poor performances. You can also offer personal support, like offering a listening ear if an athlete brings non-sport challenges to you.
7 Social networks… Social networks refers to spending social time with a coach or teammates away from sporting events. For instance, traveling with a team on a bus provides more opportunities to socialize than players taking their own cars. Athletes also appreciate opportunities to connect with others who may not be directly affiliated with their team. For instance, a club wide awards night or family socials are valuable in maintaining coach-athlete relationships.
Beyond having a quality coach-athlete relationship, other strategies can help create a training environment that is conducive to thriving too. One is to show that you enjoy your time in your role as a coach. Show you are committed to your role (without letting athlete performance impact your self-worth). Be confident in your capacity to coach the athletes you work with. See difficult moments in sport, and as a coach, as a challenge to be overcome, rather than something to be threatened by. Take initiative to manage difficult situations before they become a big deal.
Peace,
Karissa
Rhind, D. J. A. & Jowett, S. (2010). Relationship maintenance strategies in the coach-athlete relationship: The development of the COMPASS Model. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 22, 106-121. doi: 10.1080/10413200903474472
