Spring 2024: Emotional Regulation of Coaches and its Impact on Team Climate

Coaches have a highly visible and influential role within the team environment. This is particularly true of the head coach. This influence, though, is not inherently positive and rather is determined by the approach and behavior a coach exhibits as well as how others (i.e., athletes) receive and perceive the coach’s behavior. These behaviors have a direct impact on the feelings of trust within a team culture. Trust takes time to build and is generally built after navigating challenging interpersonal situations. Sport inherently has stressful and challenging situations, and therefore, coaches must learn to navigate through these situations not only for themselves but for the team they are leading to build a team climate with trust. 

One of the most critical skills for navigating and managing a stressful situation that may be triggering is emotional regulation. Emotional regulation is defined as “the processes by which individuals influence the emotions they have, when they have them, and how these emotions are experienced and expressed” (Aquib & Rizwi, 2020, p. 140). Research suggests that individuals with higher emotional intelligence, specifically emotional regulation, have better interactions and relationships with their peers as well as better health (Boss et al., 2008). In contrast, emotional dysregulation is characterized by a lack of and/or unwillingness to detect, accept, and feel emotions as well as an unwillingness to accept emotional distress as a part of a process of improvement (Blanco-Donoso, et al., 2019).

Therefore, sport, a system with inherent stressful triggers, provides a rife environment for the development of emotional regulation skills. However, the coach serves as the gatekeeper as well as the model of emotional regulation skills that the team will likely emulate. Galli (n.d.) said, “Modeling calmness and rational thinking in the face of adversity sets an example for your athletes to do the same” (para 6). In contrast, coaches' inability to effectively recognize and manage their own emotions will limit their ability to build trusting and supportive relationships with athletes and ultimately limit their effectiveness as a coach (Magrum & McCullick, 2019). Athletes with emotionally dysregulated coaches may ultimately leave the sport system without having developed emotional regulation skills and may be more prone to burnout, emotional abuse, and negative sport experiences (Magrum & McCullick, 2019). 

Therefore, emotional regulation is not only a critical life skill but a critical coaching skill. This skill carries tremendous weight in determining not only performance but coach and athlete experience as well as well-being. Although this is a critical life skill, emotional intelligence is not taught in schools, and many times athletes have experiences with emotionally dysregulated coaches. Therefore, we must be intentional about educating coaches to develop emotional regulation skills to change and integrate this skill into the overall sport culture. 

References 

Aqib, M, & Rizwi, S. H. A. (2020). Discovering the impact of emotion regulation and interpersonal communication on romantic relationships among adults. Journal of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, 3(1), 1039.

Blanco‐Donoso, L., Amutio, A., Moreno‐Jiménez, B., Yeo‐Ayala, M., Hermosilla, D., & Garrosa, E. (2019). Incivility at work, upset at home? Testing the cross‐level moderation effect of emotional dysregulation among female nurses from primary health care. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 60(3), 267–276. 

Boss, A., Sims, H. P., & Brotheridge, C. (2008). Everyone fails: Using emotion regulation and self‐leadership for recovery. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 23(2), 135–150. 

Galli, N. (n.d.). Improved Coaching through Emotional Intelligence. Association for Applied Sport Psychology. https://appliedsportpsych.org/resources/resources-for-coaches/improved-coaching-through-emotional-intelligence/

Magrum, E. D., & McCullick, B. A., (2019). The role of emotion in sport coaching: A review of the literature. The Sport Journal. https://thesportjournal.org/article/the-role-of-emotion-in-sport-coaching-a-review-of-the-literature/