Coaches as Guides, not Dictators

I recently saw a brilliant interview with Chicago Bulls legend and current NBA head coach Steve Kerr that made me think about leadership and coaching. He was responding to a question about why he allowed his players to coach during time-outs as opposed to him stepping in and leading the discussion:

“It’s their team…that’s one of the first things you have to consider as a coach, it’s not your team. It’s the player’s team…they have to take ownership of it, and as coaches our job is to…guide them.”

Having the bravery to relinquish control to your players is a difficult but important skill as a coach. It’s my view that the role of a coach is to guide and not dictate both the technical/tactical development of the players and the overall environment that they play in.

Football, like basketball, is a game where every single moment is different from the last, so the job of the coach is to best equip the players to problem solve and execute good decisions in response to unique problems that arise.

This is just one element of relinquishing control — as youth coaches, we’re constantly bombarded with language such as ‘drills’, ‘game models’ and ‘philosophy’, and this heavily influences coaching culture in the UK.

All these terms imply a dictatorial element to coaching and learning — ‘drills’ implies a rigidity and intense structure dictated by the coach, ‘game models’ also potentially give this sense of rigidity and structural patterns of play that will consequently heavily dictate the decisions that players make on the pitch.

In youth football, players should be presented with all the options available to them in all phases of the game, and coaches should (1) put on sessions that allow them to develop the technical ability to execute these options and (2) be interactive and allow the players to explore and build a deeper understanding of the outcomes of these decisions.

Let me unpack what I mean by ‘options’ using a few examples on a practical level that I’ve used with the U15’s that I currently coach. When in possession, there are three ways to progress the ball towards the opposition’s goal — you either go around, through, or over.

A dictatorial approach would be to instruct the team to do one of these at a point in time — ‘hit it over the top!’ is something I frequently hear from opposition coaches.

I like to approach things differently with my players. Firstly, I want them to be aware of the three different ways to get the ball closer to the opposition’s goal.

Then, it’s about developing their ability to gather and react to information and technical execution — where are the opposition? — are they very narrow or spread? Where are your teammates — do we have numbers through the middle to go through, do we have height, do we have width? And the crucial question — how do all of these factors affect the decision that you make?

Asking the players these types of questions during practices is a pivotal aspect of the learning process for the players — in my limited experience, it makes them think about their surroundings and how that influences their decisions.

Dictating to them that you should do ‘x’ in ‘this’ specific phase won’t have the same effect in developing the quality of their decisions, it simply teaches them to be robots and not truly understand the game and react adequately to unique situations.

Here’s a very simple match practice that I’ve done with my players that helps them to make these clear decisions.

The numbers are adjustable and the only set condition is that you must play through a set number of the gates to be able to score (apart from during time limited transitions). Any other conditions can be built in to help them technically and I’ve moved the gates around/added gates before to make things more/less challenging depending on how they’re doing.

What I think this practice (in conjunction with lots of other practices) helps players with is being clear in what they want to do with the ball based on their surroundings. It creates visual targets for them to hit that are in line with the different ways available to them to progress the ball.

Crucially, they make the decisions.

Stopping the practice at points and asking players to explain WHY they’ve made certain decisions based on what they’ve seen will help them to continually understand the decision-making process. It enables them to break down and articulate what they’re doing and why they’re doing it, rather than being told why they should do it.

This discussion has obviously so far not touched on the technical development that’s required to execute these decisions. At youth level technical development is the most important aspect of any this — the small details make the biggest difference, and that will need another blog entirely.

I’ve only spoken about relinquishing control in an ‘on the pitch’ sense to better equip players to solve problems and make good decisions. But, going back to what Steve Kerr was referring to, relinquishing control in your environment is equally important. Giving players leadership responsibility and enabling them to take ownership of the environment will enable them to develop skills that they can take beyond football.

I think this is especially crucial in grassroots environments. The vast majority of players will not go on to play football in professional/semi-professional setups, therefore I believe that grassroots coaches should aim to develop players in ways that will benefit them off the pitch and in their future endeavours.

Simple things that can built on such as asking them to run the pre-match warm up from start to finish, getting them to collectively reflect on training and match days and completely stepping away from team-talks before, during and after the game are just a few things that I frequently do to encourage leadership.

There’s so many more things that can be done and it’s my aim before the start of pre-season to create more leadership challenges and opportunities for my players.

I listened to a brilliant initiative from AFC Wimbledon Academy Director Michael Hamilton, who has made it a part of the academy programme at the club to have entirely player led matchdays where the coaches have no involvement at all.

As he emphasizes, it’s not about the end result, but the processes along the way that enable the players to learn and develop as leaders. Players who are allowed to take ownership of their environment will buy into that environment in a much stronger way than if they had no responsibility at all.

As youth coaches I believe that it’s our job to guide, not dictate, our player’s development, both in a football and wider social context.

Here’s the link to Steve Kerr’s press conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDOGjwxjEwk

I’d love to hear the views of both coaches and those from other professions on this topic, so feel free to share your thoughts!

You can follow me on Twitter: @dylan_bhundia