What kind of person makes a good coach?

I can assure you that this post is not moralising, irrespective of how it may appear.  The various environments I work across have allowed me to learn the values or traits needed to underpin good decision making when we are responsible for someone else.  That’s in fact the first truth that needs to be understood: coaching, like teaching, involves being responsible for others.  That being so, the first and most important trait of a good coach is that they are not self-centred.  Coaches, like any other professional person, are entitled to their own journey but a good coach places the athlete first. 

Coaches need to be curious and empathetic.  Both require that they are not especially ego-driven.  Effective coaches understand the basic principles of adaptation, of efficient movement and energy transfer, and the technical and tactical principles that define their sport but they also recognise through experience that sport is constantly evolving in it’s practices and, for this reason, that an open mind is essential.  Insecurity is a common problem among coaches and, like self-centredness, it shuts down curiosity and diminishes empathy for others.  Empathy is the ability to ‘feel’ from the standpoint of another.  Sport is always a mix of psychological and physical factors and empathy is needed to understand subtle influences and the nett or full effect of everything.

The final basic traits of a good coach are organisational and communication skills.  An unresponsive or improperly organised coach wont be able to knit the various departments together and a program with gaps cannot function any better than a car missing wheels or doors.

Altogether, the basic traits of a good coach permit them to make good choices for their athletes; to know what influences are missing or incorrectly applied and when to simply be patient.  Whereas adults change very little month to month or year to year, it’s the nature of sport that an athlete must change.  It’s also the natural state of childhood.  Good coaches, who are themselves adults, have to drive change and be sensitive to it.  There is an obvious natural tension to this which is why these traits are essential.