The realities of coaching: why imperfection is inevitable and intent matters most

09/07/2025

Dr Paul Garner, from the University of Birmingham, explores the pressures coaches inevitably experience that contribute to imperfect practice. He suggests accepting them as a reality while looking at useful ways to think about person-centred coaching.

For some time, an athlete-centred approach has in coaching and coach development conversations. As a coach developer, parent, academic and coach, I have witnessed many good coaches having a positive influence across sport; there is excellent practice at all levels.

However, despite this bright picture there is always room for improvement, from grassroots volunteers up to the elite and most celebrated coaches in global sport. This should come as no surprise; coaches are not flawless people and nor are they immune to self-doubt, the seductive feeling of power and the desire for recognition.

Person-centredness sounds great on paper but it can be difficult to deliver.

First, let’s consider the turbulent environment in which coaches exist. Here are two overarching considerations that pose real challenges to sport coaches.

The challenge of mixed expectations

There are many stakeholders in the coaching environment that, depending on the context, include: parents; supporters; co-coaches; administrators; athletes; and specialist support staff.

It would be unusual for everyone to have the same expectations of the coach, who is usually the central co-ordinating figure. Often there is an expectation for the coach to have the answer, the silver bullet that will bring success and with it comes the pressure to deliver. Many coaches will feign knowledge rather than expose their doubts or shortcomings. Maintaining a façade of expertise can be exhausting, something requiring what is known to sociologists as emotional labour.

Certainly, the likelihood of conflicting agendas makes it challenging for a coach to act in a consistently person-centred way. If you have ever worked with a co- coach, at some stage you have probably wanted to do things differently to your colleague. If you’ve coached children, it is likely you’ve had to manage the challenging expectations of parents.

The commercial model of sport

This complexity is often further influenced by a results-focussed culture.

The financial implications of winning in elite sport shape behaviour, the distribution of resources and the way we reward athletic endeavour. Even at a grassroots level the effects of commercialisation and the ensuing global role models for both athletes and coaches are keenly felt. For many parents and coaches, the slogan ‘it’s not all about the winning’ is mere rhetoric, and consequently tempers flare, blame is mis-attributed and those with less power (children) are left to suffer the consequences.

Similarly, in elite environments, the commodification of athletes for the financial gain of others is commonplace, with short-termism rife within professional sport – both these observations challenge our ability to adopt a person-centred approach.

It is important to reiterate that much good work is happening to address these issues. Positive youth development within sport, and recent initiatives to focus more on physical activity than competition per se, lead the way in imagining a healthy future. However, we should still grapple with poor practice where the symptoms of commercialisation and a lack of perspective remain in coaching.

Research rationale

Having briefly identified some reasons why person-centredness is not straightforward, I would suggest, given the complexity, it’s OK to be imperfect.

However, it is not OK to accept our flaws passively with no intent to develop, and therefore having a clear understanding of what we are trying to achieve is important. So, is person-centred coaching about doing what athletes need or what they want?

As a coach developer, I have long searched for the best way to help other coaches behave in a person-centred manner, and for many years, the most helpful answer has started with ‘it depends on the context’.

At first, this seemed helpful. It was honest, offered flexibility and it resonated with many coaching stories I’d been a part of, where unexpected things had occurred.

Recently, I have thought more deeply and wondered whether there was something more useful and more consistent. Rather than searching for behaviours, is there a way to guide the intention behind a person-centred approach, that is independent of context and therefore constant?

What follows is a summary of my research into person-centred intention, which attempts to provide direction for practising coaches.

Research story

My research was conducted in Alpine ski coaching, where I studied both coaches and coach educators. Drawing upon expert delivery, I used video-stimulated recall to guide an interview process that explored the intention behind behaviour.

Analysis exposed strong themes that are useful in answering the question: how might we guide the intention behind a person-centred approach?

The POWA model

The four themes to come from this study that have been used to formulate the POWA model of person-centred intention are relevant to coaches regardless of their sport. The components of this model align with the concept of humility, to the extent that we can say humble intent is foundational for person-centred coaching. First, let us look at each component in turn, before exploring how the model can be used to support coaching practice.

Perspective

I like to view perspective using the metaphor of a camera lens. While it is often healthy to concentrate on the detail, it is also important to zoom out and consider the wider context. This responsibility often falls to the coach, especially when working with younger athletes who lack the maturity or experience to look across a season or number of years. Imagine the youth athlete who is cut from an academy programme – without perspective this could easily feel like a mortal blow. In addition to zooming out, we can change the lens entirely to see things from someone else’s perspective. The ability to manage our lenses in these two different ways is an essential mechanism for person-centredness.

Other-centredness

In the context of sport coaching this is about considering what the athlete needs as opposed to what feels convenient for the coach. The data clearly showed how other-centred intentions promoted autonomy-supportive learning, where the coach invested time and energy in creating interesting challenges to facilitate learning. Furthermore, there was an intentional social awareness that helped the coaches to ‘read people’ and an appropriate use of humour. Finally, the research showed this component to be facilitated by the other components of POWA and that in isolation an other-centredness does not necessarily lead to a truly person-centred approach. As an example, autonomy-support requires a willingness to learn from the coach, recognising there may be solutions to a problem that their athletes might discover before them.

Willingness to learn

Associated with terms such as openness, transparency and growth mindset, this component is perhaps the most obviously aligned with humility. It requires a willingness to risk relative failure and an acceptance of vulnerability, neither of which correspond with our typical understanding of a coach’s role. Given the inter-related nature of POWA, embracing vulnerability might require a big-picture perspective, where the coach is prepared to experiment and risk short term losses for longer term success. The coaches I observed openly shared what they were working on in their own delivery with their learners. These self-appraisals were accurate and therefore link to the next component, but importantly such a candid willingness to learn also helped remove hierarchy, and inspired athletes to be better learners themselves. After all, highly effective sport coaches don’t just coach the sport, they coach the person to become better at learning, so that they can then be better at the sport.

Accurate self-assessment

The final component of POWA is perhaps the most difficult to apply. The emphasis here is on accuracy, which for some may require an acceptance that they do perform to a high standard in certain areas, and that they must overcome limitations of low self- esteem. For others it may require a recognition of inflated self-worth, an unpacking of why this happens and consideration for how it impacts others. Accuracy is one thing, but how and to whom we disclose this is another. Research shows that openly acknowledging one’s strengths should be motivated by an other- centredness and not simply to boost one’s ego.

The implication for the coach is that with accurate self-assessment comes a responsibility to adopt perspective, and to think deeply about how others will be affected by bringing these thoughts into the public domain.

So, to develop person-centredness you should reflect on your coaching and consider your position on each scale asking: “In which direction do I need to move to be more balanced?” Equally, for those of who are highly self-aware, and on top of their game, POWA is a simple enough model to use in the moment when faced with a coaching dilemma.

Should I intervene with this player or leave them to figure things out? How should I engage with this frustrated parent who is unsettling the learning process of my athlete? These everyday coaching dilemmas cannot always be resolved with a list of behaviours, as the right action will change almost every time and depends on the context. However, what should not change is our intention to be person-centred.

As we have already established, coaches are imperfect and will therefore at times find themselves unbalanced.

This unbalanced position might reflect an enduring trait or a specific moment, but either way the direction of this lack of balance is the important factor, and the subsequent solution that is required to rebalance. To help make sense of the model, here are some examples for deficiency and excess on each spectrum:

Blinkered – the coach who is only interested in seeing a change in performance in a session and who fails to consider the broader season.

Unfocussed – the coach who has no plan and fails to bring sufficient focus to drive a useful session.

Self-serving – the coach who is not prepared to deviate from their plan, even when they recognise the athletes need a different direction.

Servile – the coach who always says yes and panders to what athletes or parents request, to the detriment of their own well-being.

Closed-minded – the coach who is unwilling to take feedback or engage in new ways of working.

Scatterbrain – the ‘jack of all trades master of none’, who fails to bring sufficient depth to their work.

Self-denigration – the coach who lacks the courage to bring their strengths to positively influence athlete development.

Arrogant – the coach who wrongly believes they have solutions or who misreads situations whilst failing to reflect and apologise for errors.

We live in a world that is obsessed with self to the extent that the millennium generation have been dubbed “Generation ME”. Since the rise of positive psychology, we’ve seen waves of societal thinking that promotes an inward focus on subjective well-being and self-promotion.

I am passionate that we should strive to coach with more humility and consider the inherent hierarchies that affect coach-athlete interactions; adopt POWA as a model grounded in empirical research and bring more balance to your practice.

The POWA Model and Humility and Person-Centred Intention

Implications for PGA Professionals

The POWA model can be used as a thinking tool that, as a PGA Professional, you can use to support forward planning, in the moment decision making, or reflection upon coaching practice. The model’s application is supported by adopting Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean, that suggests for a trait to be virtuous it needs to represent a balanced position between excess and deficiency. In some ways, the concept of excellence or virtue equating to an average position seems wrong, but what is really suggested is balance, not doing too much or too little of something, so that we arrive at the right amount, the best amount and hence excellence.