{"id":20161,"date":"2023-09-13T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-13T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/?post_type=article&p=20161"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:11:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:11:08","slug":"why-the-best-coaches-have-mastered-the-power-of-self-regulation","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/why-the-best-coaches-have-mastered-the-power-of-self-regulation\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the Best Coaches Have Mastered the Power of Self-Regulation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n 13 Sep 2023 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

Why the Best Coaches Have Mastered the Power of Self-Regulation<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Category<\/div>\n Coaching & Development<\/a>, Leadership & Culture<\/a> <\/div>\n
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https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/why-the-best-coaches-have-mastered-the-power-of-self-regulation\/<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n\n\n\n\n
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In his latest column, Iain Brunnschweiler explains that the best coaches keep their cool and understand the craft of human interactions.<\/p>\n \n \n \n

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By Iain Brunnschweiler<\/h6>\n
A football manager on the side of the pitch, volleys the water bottles and screams in disbelief as one of his players makes a passing error on the field.<\/h6>\n

It’s a scene we have all witnessed time and time again. The crowd get to see how passionate the manager is, how much they care about the team\u2019s performance and how much this error hurts them personally. But as an executive sitting in the stands, paying the manager a huge salary, I would be asking myself just how effective they are being at their job in that moment?<\/p>\n

In psychological terms, unless this display of anger is some form of \u2018DiCaprio-esque\u2019 acting skills from the manager in question, it means that they are emotionally deregulated. And when any human is emotionally deregulated, psychologists tell us that their ability to perform a number of high level tasks (such as taking in information and strategic decision-making) is massively impacted in a negative way.<\/p>\n

Having stepped out of full-time work and into a world of consultancy, supporting a number of different organisations, it has given me time to reflect on my true beliefs, and aspects of performance development that I hold as truths.<\/p>\n

One area that I keep circling back to, is the power of self-regulation.<\/p>\n

Desirable adult behaviours<\/strong><\/p>\n

My observations of the best staff I have operated with is that they have worked out ways in which to self-regulate in the most pressurised moments. Now, this self-regulation takes numerous different forms based on the individual in question, but it is grounded in the fact that everyone needs personal strategies to stop themselves from essentially turning into a spoiled child when the going gets tough!<\/p>\n

I have been extremely lucky to have worked alongside some of the industry\u2019s top performance psychologists over the past two-and-a-half decades, both as a player and as a member of staff. My major learning from these leading members of the fraternity, is that they unlock introspection and retrospection in the people they are working with, in order to help the individual understand their own \u2018personal best state\u2019 to operate in. Then they help them work out their derailers, and identify when these derailers are likely to occur, in order to develop strategies to minimise the negative impact. It sounds simple! However, in reality this is a live process that can take years.<\/p>\n

In youth development, one of my observations, present in football more than any of the other sports I have worked in, is that coaches can demonstrate levels of deregulation which are seemingly totally disproportionate to the age group of athlete they are working with. I have seen coaches of U9 teams screaming at 15-year-old trainee referees because they are certain that the ball went out. I\u2019ve seen opposition coaching staff of U14 teams nearly coming to blows on the side of the pitch because the game is not going the way they envisaged it going. In the cold light of day, if you were to show these adults footage of themselves, especially alongside a GIF of a screaming child, their embarrassment levels would be high I have no doubt. In these cases, more work is needed in order to help them effectively self-regulate. Because, in my opinion, behaviour like this is letting down the children in their care. The role of a youth coach is to not only help the kids to learn the game, but also to be a role model of desirable adult behaviours.<\/p>\n

Another observation is that it is not just the game itself that causes a non-desirable state in adult members of staff. I have seen many coaches lose sight of what is really at the heart of coaching – in my opinion this is genuinely attending to the children\/people within your care in order to help facilitate their development in a skilful manner.<\/p>\n

One of the reasons this occurs is the current audit-driven, process-oriented world in which we live. Coaches behave in insecure ways, sometimes unable to attend to the players in front of them because they are so nervous about what their boss thinks, or what is written down on their \u2018curriculum\u2019! As a wise man once said to me, the players ARE the curriculum. The thought that a bunch of middle-aged folk in tracksuits, can predefine the development needs of an entire squad every day of the year, by writing down a development curriculum before the season starts is once again, misguided at best.<\/p>\n

The heart of coaching: guard rails, not train tracks<\/strong><\/p>\n

The best coaches (and I use that term in the broadest sense to include multiple ologies) I have worked with, are the ones who prioritise human interactions above all else. These elite practitioners are aware of the organisational documents, and will create environments that are guided by club principles, yet at the heart of their decision making is the child or adult in front of them at that moment. I heard a great analogy once, that development environments should have guard rails, rather than train tracks.<\/p>\n

My interpretation of this is that it is really helpful to have broad principles and guidance (‘the way we do things around here\u2019), but that it is genuinely unhelpful to have prescribed sessions that staff are forced to deliver. This normally just serves to deregulate or demotivate – two states that are certainly NOT optimal for performance development.<\/p>\n

For those in charge of delivering performance and\/or development environments, it would be worth considering the behaviours you are seeing from your staff teams. Are they operating in a manner which indicates that they feel psychologically safe enough to be themselves, within the broad principles of the organisation? Or are they nervously hoping that they are adhering to their boss, curriculum or audit\u2019s demands, whilst compromising the athletes within they care?<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re reflecting on your own personal optimal performance state, it\u2019s useful to consider what your derailers are, and what your strategies are. I am certainly NOT suggesting that we should not be passionate, and should not show that we care. But hopefully we can see fewer water bottles being volleyed, and fewer 15-year-old trainee referees being shouted at by the people who are supposed to be role models. I know that most athletes would prefer this.<\/p>\n

Questions for the reader:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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  • What derails you?<\/li>\n
  • How do you know when you\u2019ve been derailed, and what\/who can help you regulate yourself?<\/li>\n
  • What are the potential negatives of operating in a deregulated state, whether this is in business, sport or any other environment?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Iain Brunnschweiler runs the Focus Performance Consultancy. He is a former professional cricketer, has authored two published books, and most recently was the Head of Technical Development at Southampton Football Club.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n \n \n <\/div>\n

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