{"id":21843,"date":"2023-12-19T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-19T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/?post_type=article&p=21843"},"modified":"2026-04-01T15:04:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T14:04:30","slug":"how-different-is-it-coaching-mens-and-womens-groups","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/how-different-is-it-coaching-mens-and-womens-groups\/","title":{"rendered":"How Different Is it Coaching Men\u2019s and Women\u2019s Groups?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n 19 Dec 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

How Different Is it Coaching Men\u2019s and Women\u2019s Groups?<\/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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We asked Hockey Canada Head Coach Danny Kerry who has worked with both during his 30-year coaching career and highlight four factors in his personal development.<\/p>\n \n \n \n

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By John Portch<\/h6>\n
What do athletes need \u2013 both male and female \u2013 to be in the right place to perform?<\/h6>\n
Danny Kerry, the Head Coach of the Canada women\u2019s field hockey team, answered the question at September\u2019s Leaders Meet: Driving Step Change in Female High Performance.<\/h6>\n

He cites renowned coach developer Nigel Redman in his response. \u201cNigel uses this phrase: men have to battle in order to bond, so we have to have gone to battle first. \u2018You\u2019re a tough nut so I\u2019ll be around your nonsense\u2019 \u2013 sorry \u2013 you can see my biases playing out there. Whereas [as Redman says] women have to bond first before they battle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kerry, who led Great Britain\u2019s women to field hockey gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics, is at pains to tell the audience at Manchester\u2019s Etihad Stadium that this yardstick should only be used in general terms and may even be an oversimplification. It is, however, illustrative of the dynamics of which a coach must be aware.<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cIf you spend time and energy to understand the dynamics that are playing out within high-performing female teams, if you spend the time and energy to talk to those things, spend the time and energy to build the relationships between those players so you can understand what particular perspectives individual athletes carry, why they think as they do, what their life experiences are, that level of trust in the relationship goes up significantly and then they will literally run through brick walls for you. If you don\u2019t do that, as soon as the challenge and threat comes they can be [slow] to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He then reflects on the transition he made from coaching Great Britain\u2019s women to the men\u2019s programme in 2018. \u201cI tried that approach, if I\u2019m blunt, with the men and it was effective to a degree, but if I had my time again I would probably put them into some form of battle or get them to understand each other in that environment along with some of this other work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kerry, who was joined onstage by Emma Trott<\/a>, the former Women\u2019s Junior Endurance Coach at British Cycling, spoke at length about his personal development as a coach three decades into his career and the evolving demands of his players.<\/p>\n

Here, we highlight four factors that shaped the coach that took the reins at Hockey Canada in March 2023.<\/p>\n

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  1. His self-reflection in the heat of the moment<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \u201cI was the classic coach. All about hockey and very hard-nosed. Very cycle and task-oriented, Xs and Os,\u201d said Kerry. However, as he said, when it came to people\u2019s feelings and relationships, \u201cI received some pretty blunt feedback then tried \u2013 and failed \u2013 to adjust\u201d. He quickly realised he was doing himself a disservice. \u201cI say I failed but it\u2019s still not my sweet spot. So my big learning, whether it was male or female, was around how relationships develop as an entirety and with individual athletes.\u201d<\/p>\n

    It led him to adapt his behaviour and the most notable example was his pitch-side presence during the penalty shootout that followed the draw in Great Britain\u2019s gold medal match with the Netherlands in Rio. \u201cI always positioned myself high; the reason for that was, one, I was task-focused and, two, athletes pick up on your anxiety as a coach and, being pitch side, that\u2019s not a great thing. You don\u2019t want to add to their anxiety as a coach, so actually being up high helps with that,\u201d he continued. This time, however, he reflected and changed his custom. \u201cI remember just thinking literally \u2018what does this group need from me now as a coach and what doesn\u2019t it need?\u2019 And so at that point in time, my ability to ask myself that question at that most pressurised moment, probably of my career, was to self-regulate. All they need now is a \u2018we\u2019ve done this, we\u2019ve rehearsed this, our processes, all good?\u2019 Everyone nodded and off they went. I wouldn\u2019t have been able to do that previously. It\u2019s still a struggle, but that was a good example of being able to regulate yourself to then help the athlete be in the right place they need to be to perform.\u201d<\/p>\n

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    1. His ability to grasp the balance of team and individual needs<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      As a male coach in a female environment, Kerry is aware of the need to afford athletes personal space when it comes to issues such as the impact of the menstrual cycle on training history, volume and conditioning, particularly as there is still \u201csome debate and ambiguity about what the science is saying\u201d. While working with Great Britain\u2019s women, he would defer to the team doctor in such matters. \u201cIt was led by our doctor, a person seen to be on the \u2018outside\u2019. We didn\u2019t want athletes to think we were encroaching on something so personal to them. That needs to be handled with incredible skill.\u201d He discussed it in terms of \u201cmanaging the bell curve and deviations from the group\u201d. \u201cIt\u2019s not a science, it is a sense, it\u2019s a craft. What is optimum for this group of athletes as a whole can mean that some people adapt ahead of the bell curve, others struggle because that\u2019s not what they wish for themselves, but that\u2019s an optimum for the entire group,\u201d he said. \u201cAll facets of coaching, whether that\u2019s sitting in a meeting discussing the players, whether that\u2019s discussing how we push collectively as a team, whether that\u2019s what we\u2019re going after and how we\u2019re going after it. It\u2019s understanding that you\u2019re trying to find an optimum for that particular team and then helping those people below the bell curve find their value in that, finding what works for them. That is the craft of coaching and, in my experience, that doesn\u2019t get discussed in coach development.\u201d<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. He works to understand the psycho-social dynamics of a group<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Kerry was initially taken aback by the Canada women\u2019s often literal interpretation of his instructions. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot you can unpack there,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can unpack it from the angle of gender, you can unpack it from the angle of your understanding of what\u2019s going on. How are they feeling? Is there literal interpretation because they don\u2019t want to get it wrong? Are they doing it because of the way they\u2019ve been coached all of their life? Are they taking it literally because of the dynamic playing out within that female group? [They could ask themselves] Am I trying to do that because I\u2019ve got a 200-cap athlete next to me?<\/p>\n

        \u201cThere\u2019s a whole raft of psycho-social dynamics playing out there. So based on the experience I\u2019d had, just talking to that very quickly; almost trying to create environments where [I\u2019m asking] does it require me to talk to them? Does it require me to remove myself from that room and get them to sort it out themselves? Does it require me to use data, which involves the assistant coach of the programme leading that? Making these decisions as a head coach requires identifying some of these dynamics that are going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

        Kerry warmed to the topic and added: \u201cQuite often when people talk about performance, they\u2019re talking about a very objective domain, whereas I think it\u2019s more about these aspects. What is the greatest burden of that environment? What environment are you creating to ensure the most optimum versus the learning curve? What\u2019s your impact on that? How can you create an environment between your athletes that allows them that peer to peer conversation that Emma was talking about? How quickly do you set those things up because they are, in my experience, the single greatest inhibitor to the team and the acquisition of skill?\u201d<\/p>\n

        There have been occasions in the past where he wishes he could have coached female players differently. \u201cIf I had my time again, I would definitely approach it in a different way, but at the time, I didn\u2019t have that experience having been in hyper-masculine environments.\u201d<\/p>\n

          \n
        1. He embraces the coach\u2019s role in developing leaders<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          Kerry believes that leadership skills are fundamental to performance. \u201cYou want people to lead even without the title,\u201d he said. \u201c[With Great Britain\u2019s women] we had a discussion about that very early on talking about everyone has the capacity to lead in their own way that\u2019s congruent to them. So if I were to summarise, normalising leadership as one of the fundamentals of performance is one of the key aspects of your job [as coach], so talking to that, raising awareness of what that is and how it can be done, part of that is raising self-awareness in the athletes, how they can influence others, is absolutely fundamental. It\u2019s right up there with are you fit enough? In terms of female role models, I\u2019d like to think the women\u2019s hockey programme has some incredible female role models, someone like Kate [Richardson-Walsh] and others and now stepping into different domains whether that\u2019s big business or sports. I\u2019m very proud of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

          He continued: \u201cWe have some stereotypical views of what it takes to lead, actually. Breaking that down and allowing these athletes to lead congruently to who they are is one of the things I\u2019m most proud about. So Kate leads in a way that\u2019s congruent to her, Alex [Danson] is a very different leader but still effective, and I\u2019m now trying to do the same with field hockey Canada.<\/p>\n

          \u201cThere\u2019s a moral dimension to having a team that\u2019s well-led, there\u2019s also a huge performance dimension to having a team that\u2019s well-led and a depth and granularity to what leadership is. By the same token, whether we\u2019re leading or following, we talk about that responsibility and what it means to follow well. The difference in my experience with male teams and female teams is the female teams seem to implicitly understand the importance and significance of that and really buy-in quite quickly\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n \n \n <\/div>\n

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