Coaching Behavior

Coaching behavior and taking conflict personally

This article researches coaches’ behaviors and unique ways of delivering feedback. Feedback, should be given in a constructive manner, never a negative light. Feedback is regarded by many sports coaches as “the single most important factor in training; without it, a person does not know how well he or she is progressing. In a coach-athlete relationship, the type, amount, and timing of criticism or feedback coaches provide underscores the nature of their relationship.

Defensiveness

Defensiveness is defined as a “somewhat hostile, emotional state which causes people to either partially or totally reject incoming messages and other stimuli which they perceive as being incorrect or contradictory

High self-esteem individuals expect to perform well, whereas those with low self-esteem expect to do more poorly. Regular positive feedback builds self-esteem, giving athletes the courage to push themselves harder and attempt new challenges.

The same study found that players who exhibited low self-esteem and interacted with coaches who had less supportive and instructional approaches expressed the least amount of attraction to the coach.

Players with high self-esteem were not as affected by coaching behaviors. Therefore, those who have higher levels of self-esteem may be better able to deal with and recover from hostile controlling coaching

Athletes can feel dissatisfied with their sporting experiences and drop out of the sport when coaches focus too much on winning. The nature of sport competition emphasizes winning as an outcome, and the win–lose characteristic of sport can elicit painful feelings of regret, sorrow, and shortcomings in the athletes. Such feelings are often linked to the messages they receive from their coaches about their performance mistakes and the importance of winning. Consistent patterns of hostile-controlling behavior from coaches reduce the likelihood of continued athletic involvement of the