IN SEARCH OF AN EFFECTIVE COACHING STYLE
By Wade Gilbert, Ph.D. with Catherine Jackson, Ph.D., FACSM, California State University, Fresno.

Despite a tremendous amount of research and literature on coaching, the answer to the most fundamental question remains elusive: What style of coaching is most effective for consistently producing optimal performance? There is no general theory of coaching effectiveness, and given the wide variance of athlete needs between competitive levels and sports, some may argue that it is an impractical endeavor. Surely, however, there are common behaviors, thoughts, and characteristics of effective coaches, regardless of the context.



Successful, or effective, coaches are highly driven, reflective, and develop a coaching style that is consistent with their unique personality. In essence, reflecting on who you are (personality) and your perceived role as a coach (role frame) leads to the development of a genuine coaching style that takes advantage of your unique personal strengths.

In the remainder of this article we summarize a model of coach reflection and highlight a new way to measure coaching effectiveness – in other words, how do you know if your coaching style is effective?

The Role of Reflection in Developing an Effective Coaching Style

A characteristic of effective coaches at all levels is continued ongoing learning and reflection. For great coaches there never is an “off-season.” I remember speaking with the legendary John Wooden about how he developed his effective coaching style. He reported that at the end of each competitive season, when most athletes and coaches would break for the off-season, he would embark on a course of intensive self-study. He would select one aspect of coaching or basketball where he wanted to become more knowledgeable and learn everything he could about that topic by reading anything he could find and speaking with other coaches and professionals. This intensive self-study was initiated by continued reflection on his coaching strengths and weaknesses.

Virtually every portrait of great coaches shows them to be active learners who engage in constant reflection. Reflection is somewhat of an educational buzzword that is used liberally and seldom defined. What is reflection? What does the reflective process look like? Can you teach someone how to be more reflective? What resources are most valuable for coach reflection? When is reflection triggered, and why? These are the types of questions that my colleague Pierre Trudel and I addressed recently in a study that resulted in an empirical model of coach reflection.

Reflection is a process that mediates experience and knowledge, and is at the heart of all experienced-based learning theories. Reflection is generally triggered by professional dilemmas (referred to as issues or problems). Central to defining reflection is the concept of a reflective conversation. A reflective conversation is defined as a repeating spiral of appreciation (problem setting), action (experimenting), and re-appreciation (problem setting).

Our research found evidence for at least three types of reflection with model coaches: reflection-in-action, reflection-on-action, and retrospective reflection-on-action. Reflection-in-action is critical thought about an issue that occurs in the midst of activity. Reflection that occurs within a time-frame in which the issue can still be addressed, but not in the midst of activity, is defined as reflection-on-action (e.g., the coach who reflects about an issue in-between competitions or training sessions). Retrospective reflection-on-action is defined as reflection that occurs outside of the action-present (e.g., after the season or after a coach’s reflection can no longer impact the situation). Retrospective reflection-on-action is genuinely a ‘thinking back’ type of reflection because there is no longer an opportunity to address the issue.

Other important findings show that a reflective conversation includes four stages: issue setting, strategy generation, experimentation, and evaluation. These four stages are directly influenced by the way a coach perceives his or her role as a coach, referred to as their role frame. A coach’s role frame is, in essence, a window to their coaching style. It may be inferred then that a coach’s style not only directly influences coach-athlete interpersonal relationships and the coaching process, but the very process of learning how to coach (i.e., developing coaching strategies). How can we use this information to nurture reflection and the development of an effective coaching style?

Role frame analysis is suggested as a method for coaches to review and analyze their role frames. Coaches are typically unaware of how they frame their role because role frames are tacit (implied) and difficult to verbalize (similar to a belief system). The objective of a role frame analysis activity is to create awareness of implicit values that guide practice. Dr. Trudel and I recently summarized role frame analysis in another article:

“… role frames can surface by interrupting practitioners while they are in the process of addressing a challenging issue. Similarly, coaches could be asked, individually and in small groups, to address a series of typical coaching issues. While engaged in the process of thinking about how to resolve the issue, coaches could be asked to respond to questions such as ‘Why is this considered to be an issue?’ and ‘What strategies could be used to address the issue?’ Another alternative, and perhaps more effective, would be to have coaches reflect-on coaching issues they had just recently experienced or were presently experiencing. In either case, coaches could then be asked to create a visual display of their approach to coaching (role frame diagram). For the final step in the exercise, time would be allotted to allow the coaches to critically evaluate their role frame diagrams.”

Measuring Effective Coaching

Historically, coaching science has relied on behavioral assessments to record and evaluate coach effectiveness. A behavioral approach, using systematic observation tools, provides a detailed record of a coach’s overt behaviors, but there are many practical limitations of this approach. For example, extensive observer training is often required and many observations are needed to obtain valid and reliable results. Another common way to assess coach effectiveness is the use of questionnaires, the most common being the Leadership Scale for Sports (LSS). The LSS includes three questionnaires that provide data on athlete and coach perceptions of actual and preferred leadership style. Leadership style is separated into five dimensions: training and instructional behavior, democratic behavior, autocratic behavior, social support behavior, and rewarding behavior. Although widely used for many years in coaching research, the validity of the LSS has been questioned, particularly as a tool for assessing all aspects of effective coaching.

Recent developments in coach assessment show promise for providing a broader evaluation of coaching effectiveness. First, a comprehensive line of research has resulted in the creation of The Coaching Behavior Scale for Sport (CBS-S). This pen and paper evaluation allows athletes to assess a coach’s effectiveness along seven dimensions of coaching: technical skills, competition strategies, personal rapport, physical training and planning, mental preparation, goal setting, and negative personal rapport. This method has been tested with a wide range of athletes and has been shown to be a valid and reliable measure of effective coaching. However, as with other questionnaires designed to measure coaching styles, effective coaching is based on athlete perceptions and subjective evaluations of their coach.

In an effort to address the limitations of relying on a single method for making judgments on coach effectiveness, a multidimensional performance appraisal model was recently proposed by Cunningham and Dixon. This new model includes objective and subjective methods for measuring coach effectiveness along six dimensions of coaching performance: athletic outcomes, academic outcomes, ethical behavior, fiscal responsibility, recruit quality, and athlete satisfaction. Although proposed specifically for intercollegiate sport, the model provides a framework for evaluating coach effectiveness in any context.

Clearly, much remains to be known about effective coaching styles. As a scientific enterprise, we have truly only begun to scratch the surface. It is often argued that effective coaching is as much an art as it is a science. The goal of coaching research on this topic is to better understand this artistry and how to facilitate the development of an effective coaching style.

Here in the sport psychology program at Fresno State, we are in the process of designing a project to address these goals. Recent research on positive psychology and optimism provides innovative methodologies for designing coach effectiveness research. It has been shown that one’s explanatory style can be mapped using a technique referred to as Content Analysis of Verbatim Explanations (CAVE). Based on limited research with successful college and professional coaches, Seligman and colleagues found that effective coaches have an optimistic explanatory style. More importantly, an optimistic explanatory style can be learned even though it is often considered a stable personality trait. This raises but another question – is an effective coaching style a personality trait or a learned behavioral characteristic? Many exciting developments from the fields of coaching science and sport psychology will surely provide additional insight into effective coaching styles in the next decade.

REFERENCES

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Cunningham, G. B., & Dixon, M. A. (2003). New perspectives concerning performance appraisals of intercollegiate coaches. Quest, 55, 177-192.

Gilbert, W. D., & Trudel, P. (2001). Learning to coach through experience: Reflection in model youth sport coaches. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 21, 16-34.

Gilbert, W. D., & Trudel, P. (2004). Role of the coach: How model youth team sport coaches frame their roles. The Sport Psychologist, 18, 21-43.

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Seligman, M. (1998). Learned optimism: How to change your mind and your life. New York: Free Press.

Walton, G. M. (1992). Beyond winning: The timeless wisdom of great philosopher coaches. Champaign, IL: Leisure Press.