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#4 I am Balanced: Tiger on a Tightrope

Recently, I posted a list of 13 Beliefs of Good Coaches.  I’m following up by digging deeper into each of them.  This post is the fourth: I am balanced.  It investigates how great coaches strike a balance between being too assertive and not assertive enough.

Over the past few months I have been consulting with a local high school football team.  It has been a great experience, and I can honestly say I have learned more from the team’s coaches than they have learned from me.  On one particular day, as I arrived at practice three players passed me walking in the opposite direction.  The look of shock and awe on the players’ faces was my first clue that this day’s practice was not the usual routine.  Taking my spot under the goal post, I immediately sensed the tension in the air.  Dave (the head coach) was stalking the sidelines like a hungry grizzly bear after a long winter’s nap.  This was not his usual low key, good-humored, almost mother-hen coaching style.  Most people would describe Dave as your classic players-coach, with his usual intention of trying to create a sense of family among his players and staff.  Yet, on this particular day, Dave was doing the opposite.  His snapping at assistant coaches, kicking players off the field, growling and glaring at anyone who dared to cross his path created a feeling of impending doom.

I made a point of waiting until everyone had left the locker room before I asked Dave the obvious question—Why the change in attitude?  His response was quick and direct, “Everyone was a little too confident after our win last week, I needed to inject some fear into the team”.  

Much of my research has centered on describing what good coaching looks and feels like (The Authentic Coaching Model: A grounded theory of Coaching).  One of the recurring themes that has shown up over and over in my research is the importance of balance.  Essentially, great coaches find a way to balance the opposing forces involved in athletics.  The forces I am talking about are things like the wants vs. needs of athletes, and the balance between customary vs. novelty when it comes to a game planning.  The balancing act coaches try to achieve is best understood in terms of motivation.  Great coaches find a way to inject the right mix of both fear and confidence into a given situation.  An old coach once explained it this way, “To be a good coach, you have to scare them into believing that the sun won’t come up tomorrow, but at the same time, give them hope that it will.”

Motivating athletes to strive beyond their current abilities is an important responsibilities for any coach.  Maybe you are one of those special coaches that have a knack for knowing just how hard to push without throwing them off the cliff.  I suspect, you are like the rest of us and have to constantly monitor the way we wield power over those we are leading.  As researchers Daniel Ames and Frank Flynn from Columbia University explain in their work What Breaks a Leader: The Curvilinear relation Between Assertiveness and Leadership, striking the right balance between too assertive and not assertive enough is extremely important to becoming a great leader.  

The paradox that Ames and Flynn observed was that leaders who are too assertive are seen as overbearing jerks which damages their relationships with their followers; but leaders who are not assertive enough are pushovers who don’t end up achieving much with their teams.  The current culture in athletes seems to send the message, more is always better.  Because of that it may seem counter-intuitive, but these researchers found when it comes to motivation being average is best.  Leaders who were rated average in areas of “competitiveness”, “aggression”, “passiveness”, and “submissive” by their followers were recognized as the most effective leaders.

If this is true, the question becomes, how can coaches know when to push and when to back off?  I would suggest, the answer lies with the following 3 things:

  1. Use the Goldilocks method.  Continuously reading your athlete's level of fear vs. confidence, and tailoring your motivation strategies to balance it.
  2. Accepting the ups and downs. Don’t think you or your athletes must always demonstrate the same attitude day in and day out.
  3. Steady as she goes. Remember, average is best when it comes to how assertive you are with your athletes.

While writing this article I kept racking my brain for an analogy that might help illustrate the point of finding the sweet spot when it comes to assertiveness.  When I asked Dave (the same head coach) to read over the piece and give me his thoughts, he suggested the title “Tiger on a Tightrope”.  I think he nailed it.  

Finding the right level of assertiveness isn’t a matter of arriving at some perfect calibration and then sticking with it forever.  Rather, the best coaches get the balance right on any given day.  They are constantly swinging between too much and too little depending on the current level of fear or confidence they see in their athletes.  Everyone is going to make a misjudgment now and then, but the great coaches seem to get it right more often than not because they’ve learn how to read the people around them.

Think of coaches you know, some come across as overbearing jerks and others as wishy-washy doormats.  What signals were they missing that could have told them to push harder or to back off?  How can a new coach—or a veteran Wayward Coach—develop this skill?  It’s not easy, and it definitely takes self-awareness.  However, the potential successes if you were a tiger on the tightrope is well worth it.


Barnson, S. C. (2014). The authentic coaching model: A grounded theory of coaching. International Sport Coaching Journal, 1(2), 61-74.

Barnson, S. C. (2011). The Process of Coaching| An Examination of Authenticity. (Doctoral dissertation, UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, LAS VEGAS).

Ames, D.R. & Flynn, F.J. (2007). What Breaks a Leader: The Curvilinear Relationship Between Assertiveness and Leadership. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(2), 307-324.

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