coaching styles-do they really exist?

8/22/2019 Coaching Styles-Do They Really Exist?

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Coaching Styles: Do they really exist?

Alex Twitchen

I have a confession to make, even though I have been an active soccer coachfor very nearly 30 years, coaching hundreds if not thousands of differentperformers during that time, I have never felt comfortable or truly understoodthe meaning of coaching styles. What does a command style mean, equallywhat exactly is guided discovery or laissez faire, or question and answer, arethese really styles what in any case is a coaching style? Sure Iunderstand these concepts at a certain level, I have delivered them as part ofvarious coach education courses more times than I can remember, but to methey still remain quite problematic terms. Let me give you an example.

Some years ago I put together a short workshop on coaching styles for agroup of soccer coaches. To try and stimulate some debate and discussion Icreated an activity around two images that I found from a childrens book.The first image was ofa big bear leaning over a small boy, the bears stancewas aggressive and intimidating the little boy was scared and cowering in theshadow of the bear. Onto this image I added a speech bubble from the bearand in this bubble I added the words What kind of ingredients do you thinkyou would use to make a chocolate cake? In the second image the bear andboy were sat together in a scene of harmony and friendship, onto this image Iagain added a speech bubble from the bear, this time it said now listen theseare the ingredients you need to make a chocolate cake. The activity is quitestraightforward, in the first image was the bear using a command style ofcoaching or question and answer? In the second image was it really a

command and autocratic style or was it a form of guided discovery with thebear working with the boy in a productive harmonious learning environment tofind out how to make a chocolate cake albeit that the bear told him theingredients, the boy didnt discover them himself! The activity seemed to workwe had a really good discussion on the notion of coaching styles and therelationship between what you say and the correspondence to the way it issaid and the associated body language. Some years down the line, and as aconsequence of continually challenging the accepted wisdom aroundcoaching styles, I have re-defined my understanding of coaching styles andlinked this to the use of appropriate coaching methods with the emphasisbeing on using the right method at the right time for the right reason. Let me

explain further.

A coaching style to me more accurately reflects the personality and characterof a coach. I know that I am (mostly) quite calm, reflective, and generallyquiet, I try to build positive relationships with performers and really hateconflict and shouting, I consciously never swear in front of players and dontrant and run up and down the touch line or verbally bully players or officials. Ihave never thrown a cup of tea (or an energy drink!!) at players during a half-time rant and actually generating a good rant is something I find really hard to

do! That is the kind of person I am and I think it is reflected in the way that Iconduct my coaching. My coaching style is therefore an extension of my


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personality, it reflects my personality and outlook on life, there is very little Ican do to change or alter it it is who I am. Consequently I would reserve theterm coaching style to explain and define the relationship between thepersonality of a coach and how that influences the way they approach theircoaching role and form and develop their relationships with performers. In

this way each coach probably has their own unique style that is personal tothem.

So if that is what I would describe as a coachingstyle how would I describethe process through which I intervene and work with performers. This iswhere I use the term coaching methods. Coaching methods to me are literallythe methods that a coach can use to influence, shape, construct and organisetheir coaching and deliver the appropriate impact on performers. I accept thatwe can define a whole variety of methods but these are the methods that I

find I tend to use most.

Instruction

This is where performers are told what to do, it is an instruction which I expectthem to follow. For example I want you to play this pass with the inside of thefoot, or once you get the ball in this area it has to be crossed as quickly aspossible. With an instruction there is no discussion or debate or noexplanation to the instruction. In many respects it is the closest method to acommand style.

Explanation

This is where a coach will explain something but not invite wider discussionwith the performers. An explanation helps performers to understand but thereis no space to question or challenge the explanation. An example of anexplanation would be a soccer coach explaining that the inside of the foot isbest used to play a pass over a short distance with the greatest level ofaccuracy because the inside of the foot is the largest surface area on the footand therefore enables the greatest level of control.

Demonstration

Here the coach will provide a visual demonstration of the point they aremaking. Often a demonstration is supported by another method.

Closed Questions

I find it perplexing that in all the literature on coaching styles there is little orno mention of the difference between a closed question and an openquestion. A closed question should elicit a short response from performerssuch as What part of the foot is best used to play an accurate pass over10m?


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Open Questions

Open questions offer more opportunity for coaches and performers to enterinto a dialogue and exchange ideas and views. Open questioning such aswhat do you think we should do in this situation? are valuable in terms of

learning and understanding but require a highly skilled approach to their use.Without that skilled use open questions can open up a Pandoras Box ofdiscussion and debate that might not prove to be particularly productive.

Setting a Challenge (Problem Solving)

Here the coach can set the performers a challenge or a problem. Meeting thechallenge or solving the problem becomes the responsibility of the performerswith the coach acting as a guide and facilitator. I actually think this is amisunderstood method and one that is generally used more often than isotherwise thought. When I played soccer I can remember a number of timesan irate coach telling the team that we were responsible for sorting ourselvesout and playing better in the second half, we had got ourselves into the messand we had to get ourselves out of it coupled with a good dose of verbalsand yes a flying cup or two was that a command style or using a problemsolving method?

Play and review

This is a method that I really like and increasingly use with my players. Thismethod involves setting up a practice and letting the players play. There isvery little input from the coach, almost none, the coach is silent. After aperiod of time the practice is stopped and the coach leads a de-brief and

discussion about the practice. Sometimes I have asked the players to recordtheir thoughts on flipchart paper as part of this post practice discussion. Thekey to this method is to carefully plan the nature of the practice and ensurethat there is a point and meaning to the de-brief. Here is an example that Ihave used with my soccer team. I set up a 8v8 small sided game and gavean instruction to one team, without the other team knowing what thatinstruction was, the instruction was to keep the ball and play low risk,whatever you do dont risk losing possession of the ball! The teams playedfor 10 minutes with me being silent on the side. After 10 minutes we stoppedand went into a de-brief, the first question I asked the other team was couldthey identify the instruction that I had given the team they had being playing

against, did they work it out when they were playing? This then lead into awider discussion about the merits or otherwise of playing along the spectrumof low and high risk passing. The point here though is that in this method I letthe players play but had a very carefully planned set of de-brief activities thatconnected the playing experience to the purpose of the session.

Consequently these are the seven methods that I tend to use and there aresome key points to be made that explain how I use them.

1) I use all the methods and question myself as to whether or not I amusing the right method at the right time for the right reason.


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2) My choice of method is context specific. By that I mean that thebalance between the methods I use is dependent on who I amcoaching and the nature of the session. For example I have a basictechnical passing practice that I use as a pre-game warm-up but I willalso use it as a means to help players learn about passing angles.

When the practice is used as a pre-game warm-up it is deliveredinstructionally, I tell the players what I want and expect. When it isused in training I will ask more questionswhere do you think you canmove to receive the pass and make a good angle for the player inpossession? Same practice, different context different use of coachingmethods.

3) I might use different methods within one intervention, so for example Imight tell one player what to do but then ask supporting players howthey react to the first player, consequently a mixture of instruction andquestion and answer with perhaps a dose or two of a demonstrationthrown in for good measure.

4) Knowing how to use the right method at the right time for the rightreason is an indicator of coaching expertise. That is, expert coacheshave developed the knowledge and understanding as to the bestmethods of working with players and which method to use at what timeand why. For me that is a skill and it is a differentiating markerbetween expert and non-expert coaches.

Over the past few years I have been fortunate to experiment and play aroundwith ideas like this with undergraduate students on a sports coaching degree.We have now reached the point that if they use the term coaching stylesuncritically in their written review and evaluation of their practical coaching

sessions then the big red marker pen is coming out! I have also developed alearning activity that I have found to be particularly productive in helpingstudents to understand when, where and why they might use a particularcoaching method. Here is the activity in a soccer context but it can beadapted for any other sport.

Below is a table that connects my seven coaching methods against the seventypes of practice commonly used soccer training. This generates a 49 celltable.

Instruction Explanation Demonstration ClosedQuestion

OpenQuestion

Challenge Playand

ReviewTechnical 1 2 3 4 5 6 7Skill 8 9 10 11 12 13 14GameRelated

15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Functional 22 23 24 25 26 27 28Phase ofPlay

29 30 31 32 33 34 35

SmallSidedGame

36 37 38 39 40 41 42

11v11 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

The numbers 1-42 go into a hat (for the sanity of my students we miss outnumbers 43-49) each student draws a number and then they have to prepare


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a 10 minute coaching session where the objective is to improve short passingto feet that is planned around the practice type and coaching methodindicated by their number. For example if a student picks out number 23 fromthe hat they have to plan a functional session and use an explanation methodto improve short passing. The sessions as a learning experience are

fascinating and they help the students to understand the point I keep makingabout different coaching methods. This exercise works so much better thanjust asking them to deliver any old 10 minute coaching session. We have agood discussion and it helps them to become more critical of the acceptedwisdom around coaching styles and it helps them to learn how to use the rightmethod at the right time for the right reason. In essence it makes themconsciously think about the method they have to try and use. Of course whilsttheoretically there are 49 ways to deliver a session to improve short passing,the reality is that a balance of methods are used within the context of eachpractice type, and quite often the students will sub-consciously use othermethods aside from the one they should be using.

We take this on a stage further by asking the students to plan a session withina particular practice type and then observers on the side will record thedifferent methods that are used. This is also video-taped and the student canreview their own performance and see for themselves if they used the rightmethod to deliver the feedback and intervention they wanted to achieve.

I guess the point of writing this analysis is to finally record on paper my doubtsand unease as to the efficacy of coaching styles. In a similar way to thosewho argue that learning styles do not exist then I would say that the conceptof coaching styles, as I understand it, is at the very least an inadequate andpoor concept to describe the way that coaches actually coach. My coachingstyle is a reflection of my personality and character, how I work withperformers and how I communicate and influence their development isdependent on the relationship between my personal coaching style and myskilled expert use of different coaching methods. As I said in the openingparagraph I find the concept and terminology around coaching stylesproblematic and over time I have come to see my coaching style as

something that reflects my own reflexive self and coaching methods as amore technical process-driven concept that enables me to understand how Iwork with performers to make them better players and better people.

coaching styles-do they really exist?

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