Communication is fundamental for coaching. Successful coaches are master communicators, and unsuccessful coaches often fail, not for lack of knowledge, but for poor communication skills. Your job as a coach requires you to effectively communicate in a variety of situations, including arguing with a parent about why her daughter isn’t starting, explaining complex skills to athletes, introducing your team, and speaking with an official when you think the decision you are certain was incorrect.

Coaches must accurately turn their thoughts into an appropriate message and deliver the message effectively. Athletes must be receptive and interpret the message the way it was intended. This doesn’t always happen due to the inherent stress in sports.

So, what can coaches do to keep communication channels running as smoothly as possible within a team? They can continuously work on their sending skills to be clear in their messages. When messages are interpreted inaccurately, coaches and athletes should clarify their meaning or remain patient until communication can be clarified. The team should commit to understanding each other, and realize that communication may be misperceived in the stressful environment of sport.

Developing Credibility When Communicating

Credibility is one of the most important elements in effective communication with athletes. The trust and belief your athletes have in you, depends on your communication credibility. Athletes will give you credibility because you occupy a prestigious role as a coach. From that point, you either maintain and build this credibility or decrease it depending on your communication and actions.

Communicating With a Positive Approach

It is a very crucial skill to learn to communicate with a positive approach both in coaching and in other aspects of life. The positive approach helps athletes value themselves as individuals, and it reflects to your credibility. The negative approach increases the fear of failure of an athlete and lowers confidence which ends up damaging your credibility.

Sending Messages High in Information

Some coaches might think that a whistle, and the Coach title gives them the right to have judge type behaviour. This approach leads to constantly giving verdicts to players, telling them what they did right or wrong. Athletes need more than to be told that they did something wrong; they need specific information on how to do it right. Successful coaches are skilled teachers, not judges.

Some coaches adopt this approach because they lack the technical knowledge of the sport to provide athletes with the information they need. When this occurs, coaches may become judges to cover up their own deficiencies. Command-style coaches are especially likely to communicate like a judge.

Classic praise like “Good Job” is very common in coaching. However, since positive performance feedback is tied to a specific action, a very simple “Good Job” might not give the best result. As an example, if we consider football, feedback such as “Good decision passing the ball to your free teammate on the left wing” will be more effective than “Good job”.

Communicating With Consistency

Communicating consistently is difficult because all coaches have a little bit of “Coach Fickle”. It is easy to preach one thing and do the opposite the next day. Your brain may tell you to say something verbally, but your emotions might express something different nonverbally. Young athletes might become confused and start to doubt your credibility when they receive mixed messages.

Learning How to Listen

Listening involves a desire to understand and connect. It also takes effort and genuine caring. True listening means we make ourselves available to others by suspending our needs, and by giving them our complete attention. Hearing is something you do automatically; listening is not.

Staying Away from “Coach Bias”

The mythical “Coach Bias” has bad reputation because of causing negative expectancy process. Research has shown that the expectations that coaches create about the abilities of athletes have a potential to determine the achievement level each athlete ultimately reaches (1). This is also called a self-fulfilling prophecy because the expectations of coaches can fire up a process in which these expectations become true for athletes. It occurs based on the biased ways that coaches communicate and interact with athletes.

Communication is the most important human skill. For this reason, it is also the most important coaching skill. Throughout the history of sport, many of the best coaches have been outstanding communicators. It is also a fundamental human skill that we all can improve on every aspect of our lives.

References

1. Martin, E.M., & Horn, T.S. (2013). The role of athletic identity and passion in predicting burnout in adolescent female athletes. The Sport Psychologist, 27, 338-348.

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