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When we turn up to coach, we bring all of who we are as coaches and people, including our personality, emotions, and biography. These factors drive our behaviour, therefore understanding the mechanisms is key to making progress in our behaviour. Tune in for a deep dive on both inherited and learned behaviours, as well as the roles motivations and emotions collaboratively play in making you who you are as a coach. In addition, you'll receive strategies for working with your individual makeup and surrounding influences to guide you on your personal journey.

If you enjoy this episode I recommend checking these episodes out too:

Rethinking coaching philosophy

Don't change coach behaviour, control it

The information fallacy in coach behaviour change

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Subscribe| Labours of Sport Coaching - The Self-Determined Coach

Ever considered what a coach's philosophy can and perhaps should include beyond sport specific knowledge? We use the term philosophy so much in coaching that it means everything and nothing all at once, and in this episode I sit down with Dr Mark Partington from Edge Hill University to discuss his new paper revisiting philosophy. Combining sociological theory with professional experience, Mark's paper offers new angles for discussion, from the place of metaphysics to considering whether the values coaches profess within philosophy statements are realised within actual coaching practice. Tune in to get to grips with, and understand the practical use of terms like ontology, epistemology, axiology, and reflexivity, while becoming more self-aware of the power of social influences on your coaching philosophy. You might just unlock a new level of thinking to take your philosophy, and practice, further.

Paper discussed:

Partington, M., & Cushion, C. J. (2025). Re-visiting a critical analysis of ‘coaching philosophy’: deconstruction to reconstruction. Sport, Education and Society, 1-14.

If you enjoy this episode, I suggest you check out this previous episode too:

Why effective coach reflection needs reflexivity

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It is solid advice to nurture your athletes' internal drivers through autonomy-supportive coaching for sustainable, long term motivation and a range of positive benefits. But there are times when short term impacts matter too, and situations and personalities call for a responsibly managed controlling coaching approach to elicit immediate reactions from athletes. In this episode I talk through this case, building on clues left by research evidence and drawing on my professional practice to offer a nuanced argument for taking full advantage of all behavioural regulators as and when needed in coaching, for a short while at least.

Paper discussed:

Pelletier, L. G., Fortier, M. S., Vallerand, R. J., & Briere, N. M. (2001). Associations among perceived autonomy support, forms of self-regulation, and persistence: A prospective study. Motivation and emotion, 25, 279-306.

If you like this episode, I suggest checking out these episodes too:

Don't change behaviour, control it

Reframing motivation with SDT

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Nowadays we're almost told what the correct coaching behaviours are. Particularly where motivational behaviours are concerned. But what happens when popular coaching styles clash with your authentic, and most effective, self? In this episode I argue the case for behaviour control, not change, and champion the coach's prerogative to reject popular behaviours or at very least put them on the periphery of your tool kit in order to care for what makes you YOU, when that's acceptable (outside of extreme/harmful cases). But, there are qualifiers here. Tune in to hear more and perhaps embrace my control first, change last behavioural framework. Lets mitigate, not erase; monitor, not correct; channel self-awareness, not self-censorship.

If you like this episode, I suggest checking out these episodes too:

- The problem with coach observations

- The information fallacy in coach behaviour change

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https://markjcarrollcoaching.wordpress.com/consultancy/

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/markjcarrollresearcher/

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In this episode I'm joined by Professor of Sport Psychology Adam Nicholls from University of Hull to consider the complimentary role sport psychologists can play in coach-led processes, shining a light on where the blame lies in cases of disagreement from both sides of the fence. We also chat about how coaches can utilise mental skills with not just athletes, but also themselves, while at the same time problematising coping strategies in dysfunctional sporting environments. The conversations leads to discussing career planning within coaching, and why coaches are willing to forgo stable working conditions and mental wellbeing in search of positions of high status and the chance for glory.

Learn more about your host and access my services: https://markjcarrollcoaching.wordpress.com/consultancy/

Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markjcarrollresearcher/

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For this episode I'm joined by Professor Sophia Jowett to discuss what it takes for coaches to build functional, satisfying and effective coach-athlete relationships, based on Sophia's famous '3Cs+1' empirical framework developed across decades of research. We chat about the relational imperatives of coaching, observed outcomes and determinants of high quality coach-athlete relationships, as well as cross-overs and distinctions with basic psychological needs theory from both academic and practical perspectives.

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https://markjcarrollcoaching.wordpress.com/consultancy/

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/markjcarrollresearcher/

Sign up to my FREE motivational psychology newsletter:Subscribe| Labours of Sport Coaching - The Self-Determined Coach

Coach observations come with benefits for aiding behavioural understanding and improvement in coaching, but we don't discuss their innate problems enough. Yet we seem to rely on observational data or perception at an increasing rate for coach education and sense making. Coach observations carry baggage, in terms of their validity and reliability and in this episode I flesh out this problem. Both through the scientific lens and the relational lens of coaching, which are best viewed - and used - synergistically to achieve meaningful learning while mitigating against errors. This conversation serve to elaborate on an argument I started in a previous episode: The information fallacy in coach behaviour change.

Learn more about your host and access my services:

https://markjcarrollcoaching.wordpress.com/consultancy/

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/markjcarrollresearcher/

Sign up to my FREE motivational psychology newsletter:Subscribe| Labours of Sport Coaching - The Self-Determined Coach

If a coach is controlling but shows high relatedness towards an athlete, does the relatedness buffer the control? Not quite, it turns out. In this episode I chat to Elisa Lefever, Doctoral Assistant at Gent University, about the intriguing cautionary findings of a recent paper determining the interacting impacts of coach control and relatedness on athlete performance, anxiety, burnout, and engagement.

Paper discussed:

Lefever, E., Flamant, N., Morbée, S., Soenens, B., Vansteenkiste, M., Ntoumanis, N., & Haerens, L. (2025). Does a closer coach-athlete bond buffer or exacerbate the detrimental effects of controlling coaching on athletes’ coping and outcomes?. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 20(1), 56-69.

Learn more about your host and access my services:

https://markjcarrollcoaching.wordpress.com/consultancy/

Connect with me on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/markjcarrollresearcher/