Team cohesion, motivation and the types of motivation used to promote the “team” concept are paramount in being successful as individuals and as a team. Depending on the types of motivational strategies a coach utilizes, they can maximize team and individual athletic performance, and by doing so can promote team cohesion, overall team climate and even goal setting. Whether a coach chooses BATs, speeches or a certain type of coaching style all have a motivational factor for athletes and the teams they play with. It is up to the coach to know their coaching philosophies, their teams, and individual athletes to make an educated decision on what motivational techniques would maximize performance.
Implications of future research in the coach-athlete relationship realm point toward exploring self-efficacy, emotion and coach leadership. All three have a major bearing on what kind of coach-athlete relationship that will develop. Self efficacy according to Albert Bandura as cited in Cloninger (2004) is the notion that a person believes they can organize and execute a given action required to deal with a situation. In an athletic sense, there is the athlete’s self efficacy and coaching efficacy. Coaching efficacy can be broken into two types: how the coaches view themselves, and how the players view a coach’s efficacy. In the case of how an athlete views coaching efficacy, it can be multifaceted as Kavussanu, Boardley, Jutkiewicz, Vincent and Ring (2008) explain. They list some variables that influence coaching efficacy, coaching experience and prior team success. An athlete’s self efficacy can be increased by a coach using positive reinforcement therefore having the athlete use the coach’s feedback as a source to determine ability, effort and an expectation of future success (Vargas-Tonsing, 2009).
There is not much research on the athletic performance as a result of motivational strategies. If the research does progress it will shift to a more holistic and emotional stance toward motivation and its affect on performance. Therein lays the problem, since there is not much research on the athletic performance as a result of motivational strategies themselves, research will have to begin to focus on motivational strategies alone and if certain types are related to enhanced performance or if some decrease it. Only then will coaches of all levels get a grasp and understand the types of motivation that are available and how effective they are to enhance overall team performance and performance for the individual athlete, they would in essence build a stronger program and in turn the coach becomes a better leader and role model for athletes.
References
Cloninger, Susan (2004). Mischel and Bandura: Cognitive Social Learning. (4th ed.),
Theories of Personality Understanding Persons (p. 367). New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc.
Kavussanu, Maria, Boardley, Ian D., Jutkiewicz, Natalia, Vincent, Samantha, & Ring,
Christopher. (2008). Coaching Efficacy and Coaching Effectiveness: Examining Their Predictors and Comparing Coaches’ and Athletes’ Reports. Sport Psychologist, 22(4), 383-404.
Vargas-Tonsing, Tiffanye M. (2009). An Exploratory Examination of the Effects of Coaches’ Pre-Game Speeches on Athletes’ Perceptions of Self-Efficacy and Emotion. Journal of Sport Behavior, 92-111.
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