Managing Egos and Feedback
A large part of coaching is managing players. But managing our own emotional states is a crucial piece of that same puzzle.
Last week in my conversation with Coach Joe we discussed how egos can keep us from developing. The week before that, while I was perusing Twitter, a youth coach posted game footage from one of his teams and got upset when people began commenting about how much he was shouting. Then, while watching EPL highlights online, a small moment stood out that highlighted the role of egos within player interactions.
All of this is to say, this week we’ll be looking at the interplay between egos and feedback
🗣️ Egos & Coaching Young People
To begin with, every coach needs to have an ego. The point of coaching is to enforce your will upon the players. You need to be able to stand up in front of parents, players, administrators and be assertive in what you’re saying and your decisions. You need to force players to do what you ask and perform up to expectations. That doesn’t mean players are to be coerced, but you need to be confident in what you do and that requires an ego.
But egos can harm us when we start believing that our coaching desires take precedence over the well being of others. Egos harm us when we put a higher priority on the external validation of coaching (i.e. winning) rather than the internal validation of putting our best effort forward. Egos harm us when we become focused on who we are rather than what we do, and all of these things negatively affect the experiences that our players have.
🥗 Healthy Egos
On the other hand, a healthy ego means we are confident in our plan of action while still remaining open to being told we’re wrong. And being wrong can be painful. That pain can keep us from listening to (and believing) those around us when they voice their honest opinions. But the ability to hear others, even when what they’re saying hurts, is a crucial skill if we want to improve our craft, and the same goes for players. This is particularly salient for youth coaches because we often focus on improving how we give our feedback but we should also be teaching young players how to better receive feedback.
It’s inevitable that we will be criticized at some point. We’ll have a DOC or fellow coach point out where our team falls short; an opposing coach will loudly state that our team plays dirty; one of our players will complain about what we’re doing. These things are bound to happen and they are also golden opportunities to model what a healthy ego looks like — and then discuss it with our players afterward.
And this may be the most important point: As coaches, we must have healthy egos and model them if we want our players to be the same – if we want our players to be both confident and coachable. So I strongly suggest you share the following examples and concepts with your youth players to help them develop into well-functioning people.
⚽ Soccer is One Dimension
As the Second Principle of Good Coaching says, youth soccer should be about developing healthy relationships. We need to create authentic relationships with our players to better understand who they are as people and show that we sincerely care about their well being. Once that relationship is established, it becomes clear that when we give feedback (and nobody’s perfect, we will deliver it in unpalatable ways sometimes and we’ll need that social capital as well) it is because we authentically care about them, not the opposite.
Soccer is just a game and that gets said all the time. But often – and I include myself in this – we think of our players as being fully committed and completely focused on soccer (usually because that’s how we are) when in reality our players are so much more. They’re students, siblings, friends, children; they’re readers, movie-goers, artists, gamers, video creators. We need to put their soccer actions in context of who they are to better give feedback to them, and so they understand that when we tell them they need to improve on one aspect of their game, it does not mean that they need to improve as an entire person.
This is the mindset we must develop in them. They need to see themselves as having all of these identities, so they become conscious of them and strive to improve those areas of their life as well. This is one way in which the game of soccer not only improves what we do on the field, but also encourages people to excel in every facet of their life.
✍️ Example of a Player’s Healthy Ego
Manchester United played Liverpool about a month ago and while I was watching some of the extended highlights one moment stood out to me.
Take a look (just watch the first 15 seconds or so from when the video starts):
After Liverpool gave up a goal, vice-captain James Milner took a moment to rebuke Virgil van Dijk for making an error. We’ve all experienced something like this, and when somebody is in your face, angrily telling you what you did wrong, it’s hard not to become defensive and retaliate.
But Virgil didn’t do that. He didn’t shout back saying “You’re the one who went to ground too early!” or “You need to organize the midfield better!” Instead he listened, he nodded, and he acknowledged what Milner was saying while directing his focus back to the game. Virgil’s actions embodied a mindset that anybody needs if they want to become a top performer in their field. He provided an example that if you want to maximize your learning – and thus your performance – potential, you need to be able to listen to criticism without taking it personally, which is an incredibly difficult skill to acquire and requires a healthy ego.
I encourage coaches to show this clip to their players and talk about Virgil’s reactions, as well as Milner’s actions and discuss how his communication could be different.
(As an aside, Coach Joe talked about how to handle situations like this when one player shouts at another. He gave tremendous advice and great strategical insight into how to approach the situation, but I don’t want to steal his thunder. So come back next week to read the second part of my interview with him.)
Also here’s a TED talk that came out two years ago from a soccer referee who talked about his strategies to not take criticism personally. I figured it was pretty relevant to what we’re talking about:
✅ Ego Awareness
The most powerful way we can teach our players how to have healthy egos is by modeling it for them. Same as how Virgil did it when he was being yelled at, or how a coach failed to do it when his social media followers disagreed with him, we must be aware of our ego if we want to control it, if we want to show our players how to manage their emotions, and if we want to create an environment that fosters personal growth and emotional resilience.
👩⚕️ Physiological Responses to Look Out For
There is no doubt that there are links between the body and the mind. What occurs inside of our head can manifest itself as physiological changes within our body and it’s important to pay attention to this dynamic. Before our mind even decides to tell someone something personal about us (as an example), our body will already know what we’re about to do. We’ll get butterflies in our stomach, our feet jitter, our palms sweat. The link between the body and mind is a crucial part of who we are and determines the actions we’ll make.
In the case of our ego, when we feel that we are being criticized our body responds appropriately. Our muscles tense up, our heart rate increases, our breathing becomes quicker. And being aware of these physiological changes can act as a signal for our mental state.
When we notice our body responding in these ways we can use that as a mechanism to change our thinking. Instead of becoming defensive we can remind ourselves that it’s not personal. That we are more than just the one-dimension of us that is receiving feedback. That we should listen to the content of what the person is saying and show the confidence and strength to receive it if it is useful or have the wisdom to recognize if it is inconsequential. But what we want to avoid is becoming defensive, retaliating with anger, or shutting ourselves off from different opinions. Even if we don’t agree that doesn’t mean we can’t learn. It’s incredibly difficult to do, and like all skills it takes practice, but the goal is to make this an automatic response so we can focus on the task at hand.
✨ Emotional Responses
Of course, those physiological responses don’t automatically equate to an attack on your ego either. We must also be aware of our emotional state to better gauge what is happening. It’s okay to be angry — upsetting things will happen — but it’s how we respond that matters.
So take a moment – before you dismiss what your DOC says, before you shout back to the opposing coach, before you say something hurtful to a player – and ask yourself “Why am I angry?”
Is it because somebody broke an agreed upon standard? Or is it because somebody is saying something that’s true but also hurtful? Because if it’s true then your options are 1) ignore it, be upset, and stay within your comfort zone, or 2) accept it, recognize that it hurts but that it’s also helpful, and then become better for it.
This may be an oversimplified choice but it’s still a choice. And it’s hard. But if that’s the type of player we want to have then that’s the type of coach we have to become.
🎀 Wrapping Up
Managing our egos is crucial as coaches. It ensures that we remain aware of ways to improve our processes and that we’re modeling healthy and helpful behaviors for our players. However, it’s not an easy skill to master. It means we must not take criticism personally nor can we ignore others simply because we don’t like them. We must continually check-in with our physical and emotional well-being to choose the most beneficial action – and put it in the context of our greater identity. It’s not a panacea, but it is a step forward, and a necessary one to take if we want to develop future generations of intelligent and humble people.