Autonomy supportive coaching 101

Mark Carroll (: 00:00

Hi everyone, welcome to this episode of Labours of Sports Coaching. So in today's episode I'm going to run through some core autonomy supported behaviours as outlined in a fairly timeless text by Mageau Vallerand in 2003 where they describe the coach athlete relationship through a motivational model and it's governed by self-determination theory and it's a really great

article and it outlines these seven key behaviors and I'm going to kind of build on them a little bit and elaborate on each of them. And I'm not really going to go into the other elements of motivational theory insofar as like the behavioral regulators, like the motivation types and how

Cyclist needs to fit in with motivational orientation. That's for another episode, which will be coming. I'm just wanting to kind of leave you with the seven behaviors and we can talk about quite practical terms, how we can get these things done. So you can pick up and use it if you're a coach or a coach educator in practice. So very briefly, suppose, without again, as I say, into the rabbit hole too much. Autonomy.

we know is really, really important. It's a fundamental need for all people. But within the context of athlete motivation, there's been a wealth of literature that's indicated that we get a lot of adaptive outcomes associated with giving athletes the perception of being in control of their own behavior to some extent. Because it touches upon that sort of inbuilt disposition towards growth, that disposition towards what we might even call self-actualization, where someone wants to, know,

feel volitional in their actions and feel like they are building an integrated, cohesive sense of self and freedom and independence. So those things really matter towards that. It's very difficult for us to reach a point where we really love an activity if we don't have some sense of control over it. Whether or not it moves any further beyond the illusion of control or essentially the coach.

making an athlete feel in control rather than being in control. It's another conversation for another day, another episode. But that is it in a nutshell. Now, the same behaviors. Okay, so we know that autonomy support is good. It's linked to lots of outcomes, like I said, and very briefly, like outcomes like greater enjoyment, more effort, more persistence, even in some case study work, there's been inferences that it can improve performance as well.

So we know it's good. Torname, support, good. We won't get more critical than that today. So what are the same behaviors? So the first behavior is providing choice within specific limits. I actually like to of coin it as providing meaningful choice. So what we mean by that is we want to give the athlete the sense that they can choose some element.

of your coaching process, you know? So that they feel like they're taking ownership over their own development to some degree. And when I mean meaningful choice, it's relative, isn't it, to the individual? you know, meaningful is not superficial. Because I think the fine people say, all right, meaningful, give them choice so they can do the warmup. Now, relative.

to for a nine-year-old, relative to them, so far as where they're currently at or how they think about things, that might feel a bit more meaningful. But to a 20-year-old, a senior athlete, an athlete who's maybe used to dealing with autonomy and being given independence, that sort of thing, that's not that meaningful. You'll see often, and that's not necessarily to say that you can't do that, they'll do your own warm-up, but...

You can be creative about it. It could be something as simple as allowing athletes to choose a still movement within some sort of ballmaster exercise to something as advanced as really offering them input in the training regime and the order in which they do things or even the goals that they're setting for the season. And that's kind of why I say it goes hand in hand with the

the age and stage of the athlete in some respect, think, practically speaking, because their needs become more complex, I think, as they grow older. And that's that desire for independence. It's not that it grows. It does, yeah, think realistically it does. It's not to suggest that, mean, the self-termination period, I mean, we it's always been there, but certainly their ability to be independent, if it's being trained at the same time as this.

therefore maybe their desire and appetite for it as a result will be increased. So yeah, we need to think about that and the context will matter a lot as well. So that's the first behavior and I think it's just being very clear about what meaningful choice is, okay, actually making it meaningful really does matter for the athlete. And then again, and one of the things I would say to people, doesn't need to interrupt.

your training structure. Some people often think, do I need to have three or four exercises and my session's set out and they choose one, well, how do I set anything up? And we get a bit too extreme with it too quickly. Look, maybe if you're operating in a circuit fashion or you have the time available to do that, you might decide to do that. I don't know, but it doesn't need to be in that way because remember, these are interpersonal strategies.

So they can be scaled out in some respect in so far as how you set up the environment to communicate messages indirectly. But interpersonal is by its nature, it's relational, it's how you talk to people, how you work with people. Conversation, so that's where I think you can offer meaningful choice in a way it doesn't need to detract or make your job more complicated in so far as when they cross that white line and.

or step into the swimming pool, depending on where you coach. But for me, the white line in football. So just don't let yourself off easy by thinking it can only be something as radical as a in what to do in the training session. It doesn't need to be that. It can be smaller, more subtle behaviors. That leads on to the second behavior, which is about providing rationale for tasks and instructions.

So this is quite a subtle kind of soft power, I would say. So you might wonder how does that make someone feel more in control of whatever, know, other behaviors, just by explaining to them what your command is and your instruction is. Well, consider what happens when you explain something to someone. So if I explain something to you, I am going to perhaps give you a reason you hadn't even considered before.

or certainly I'm going to give a reason that further emphasizes your awareness of the right action is what I've instructed. So I'm allowing, I'm buying myself credibility, I'm buying instruction credibility in the athlete by explaining it to them. So then therefore the athlete's able to volitionally, you know, on their own back, agree and embrace that behavior so they feel more self-determined when they do it. So it's kind of like the difference between me telling an athlete

do that and they say why and I said good I said so to you know telling them to do something and they say why and I explained well because of X Y and Z and they go right I understand now I can go along with that so it's a bit of a superpower it's very actionable and I think particularly you know both in respect to you know when

There's a, you you're asking them to do something they expect them to do or that they would like to do, but it's about increasing their understanding almost as a form of competence support as well, by the way, which is another conversation for another day, which is one of the other three psychological needs, but because they do interweave in that sense. But also, actually, I think it's a really great way that if you do need to be on paper controlling or commanding an athlete to do something, again, it almost softens the blow a bit and to mid-date to some extent some of the...

more direct inferences when someone just makes a flat out command of someone. So it's a really good exercise for that reason. So that's the whole purpose of that, providing a rationale. The next one is acknowledging feelings and perspectives. Because consider the idea of, well if I'm trying to show respect for you as a person and I'm respecting your autonomy, your right to autonomy.

then I shouldn't be moving you about like some sort of pawn in a chess board. I shouldn't be just deciding where I want you to go and I don't necessarily consider your feelings on where I'm telling you to go. So by offering someone the opportunity to tell you how they feel about something, it actually is really useful in two levels. Certainly I've found it to be useful in two levels for myself. They just feel heard. like regardless of actually where I'm not,

on the back of what they say, you decide to do something different or you still push forward with what you feel is the right thing for them to do. They've been given an opportunity to voice their opinion and I think that communicates respect. Obviously, however, I think what you do still need to do is follow that up and at least show a, I would still say you still need to then show a effort to integrate that perspective with either your current rationale, you know, for.

for what you're asking them to do. You know, insofar as either actually building it in and maybe changing the course or modifying exactly the exact instruction because now you've realized there's something else that you can do here to get them on board. So you're gonna be compromised, they're degree, or if you're not, at least allows you to actually build on their perspective of the event and to your explanation for why it has to be a different course of action.

because again, sometimes you won't know, you know, may be butting heads of an athlete, but when you actually acknowledge the perspective, then asks for the perspective. Before that, asking for the perspective, it then actually might give you access to understand why they weren't maybe going ahead with along with what you're saying. And then like I say, can mend things from there. it unlocks that added layer of understanding of your athlete so that ultimately you can

more harmoniously interact with one another and therefore hopefully the athletes, you know, respond to what you're saying is a bit more volitional and you know, they're agreeing to it and working with you and not against you, you know, so you're not necessarily having to tell them what to do but you're working in partnership with one another to as much as is possible and is appropriate. Okay, so the next behaviour is offering opportunities for independent work and initiative taking. So look at this in two levels.

Autonomy, well, we're sort of, we're bracketing autonomy from a self-determination theory standpoint, we bracket autonomy as a right, as a need. But it is also, from a coaching perspective, a skill, a competency that has to be developed over time, you know, insofar as our ability to not just be offered the opportunity to be autonomous, but to be effective in our own autonomy, you know? So, like, I think coaches need to consider it, it's like a psychosocial skill to help.

present opportunities for players to practice being autonomous. So this is where we consider, I've been a very good example, I remember watching swimming coaches before and it's like they have the exercises on the board to tell the athletes what they're doing, but the athletes go and take it over from there and they go and go through their paces, they do the lengths, they do their timings, they do all the things that they're meant to do.

while the coach is structuring that environment, that's really important. know, and autonomy has to be supported through structure because you don't understand the boundaries or have some sort of compass as to where you need to go. It's very difficult to be able to interact on your own merit towards that goal because you aren't actually, you don't know where the goal posts are. So that's really important just as a consideration for that. you need to, yeah, you need to allow them.

space to do stuff independent. How did they become flexible, adaptable, self-sufficient people if you aren't offered an opportunity to struggle and to try out stuff on their own, to get it right, to get it wrong, to learn how to self-regulate. They need to do that. So think about in your own coaching context how you might be able to create an opportunity for that to occur.

initiative taken as well, opportunities for initiative taken. And I quite like that. think about, oftentimes this almost manifests as like unteachable moments. It's kind of like, you ever, I mean, for me in a football context where you come, you walk into training and you're putting some cones out and you know that your players know where the balls are kept, but they wait on you to go and get the balls anyway.

There's a teachable moment there and, if you know where the balls are, go and get the balls. And you can prompt that initiative taken, maybe over time. And that's fine, initially, not over time, but you can prompt that initially. But essentially, you're trying to get the athletes to feel empowered to use their initiative. look, can be far more complicated situations where that might occur as well. Let's say initiative taken within match moments, within competitive play.

in terms of making their own decisions and those sorts of things. It could be overset piece situations or anything like that relevant to your sport. So you can think of that and whatever way you like, it's got a fluid term initiative taken, but really, really important. And again, you're training and you're supporting them on how to do that. And a bit like the idea of meaningful choice, how that's relative to the individual, the extent to which you...

offer opportunities for initiative taking and independent work has to be at the same stage as the athlete's capacity to take on that autonomy. You know, that's, as I say, it's like that's, otherwise that's negligent. That's not necessarily empowering behavior. So keep that in mind. The next behavior is, it's quite an interesting one. It's what we call providing non-controlling competence feedback. So the way you think about this, so every,

you know, lot of times coaching's in the feedback. Maybe that's bit controversial. Sometimes people say, it's not, it's in the design of the practice. Whatever, I'm not getting into that. But you know, the feedback element, coaches are, you know, they watch, they observe, we then give feedback to the athlete. Now, all feedback has a sort of informational element to it, insofar as here's what I seen, here's what I observed, here's what I think. And then there's sort of like an instructional element to it as well, often in terms of like,

Now, here's what you should do. Now, there's a difference, the way that we would consider in terms of what should be more empowering versus less empowering. There's a difference between saying, here's what I observed, now do this, to here's what I've observed. Now, I think you should do this because of this, probably in the rationale, or here's what I've observed.

you could do it in this way or you could do it in that way. This is the consequence of doing it in this way. This is the consequence of doing it in that way. What is your feelings? What is your perspective on this? So what we're essentially doing there is we're still, we're ensuring that the most salient element of that feedback process is in the information, not in the instruction. We're trying to give them information they require and then give them.

freedom and empowerment to choose what the right direction is, sensibly speaking. And again, because I know people might be thinking as soon as I say this, like, how on earth do you have time to do that in certain situations? Like in a match day, for example, in a football game, if I'm sitting at the side of the park, I'm shouting over in my winger, here's what I'm noticing, you could do this, you could do that, what's your feelings? The balls went past him.

You know, you have to obviously there's times where we need more direct instruction and as sometimes more commanding But just consider again where that could fit in in your preparation still so You know is it is it is it post-match analysis work that you've been doing with players? You know in terms of how you have that conversation with them and As it during certain moments of the match where it slowed down a little bit and you can have those those

opportunities for an elaborate discussion. If it isn't something you've already decided on pregame as well. So again, you've maybe given them opportunities to decide which way that way in terms of maybe as you go over a tactical plan, you know what mean? I had a great conversation on the podcast with Kevin Nicol actually, that's an absolutely fantastic paper. Looking at how we can offer structure and autonomy and those sorts of things within a tactical plan.

you know, has experience as a football manager in Norway. So just check it out because it's quite, it'll resonate with this sort of conversation. But that, those are the different ways that we can kind of, you know, just ensure that we have an autonomy supportive approach to competence feedback. Okay. And look, and I mean, there was a study,

can't recall the name of the offer, but I've seen a case study for example in archery where this, that very conversation of just how much time is available and those sorts of like, heuristic moments within coaching, where it's just about doing the most of what you can do. Where you maybe, yes, you can prepare in advance and have a bit more of a two-way interaction then, but in certain elements and, know, certain situations where you think actually.

that they need structure, more structure, and they need autonomy, then you be more direct. You know how to manage these things sensibly as a coach. So that's something to consider. The sixth and the seventh, autonomy supported behavior, is funnily, it's about avoiding controlling behaviors. So the reason for this is, we need to remember that people think that, so in,

Briefly speaking here, so controlling behavior is the opposite of autonomy. You're either supporting an athlete's desire to feel autonomous or you're actively frustrating it, or you may be passively frustrating it, but that's another conversation. I've had a previous episode on that around need neglecting or need depriving behaviors. It's a different thing, but you can tune into that as a previous episode. But the reason why we have to both be actively supporting needs and

actively avoiding negative behaviors, at least in the way that self determination view looks at controlling behaviors, is that

Coaching behaviors, different dimensions of coach behaviors, they're orthogonal. And I'll try that again, orthogonal. Meaning that they're not mutually exclusive. So it doesn't mean to say that you, by being autonomous, you're automatically, minimally, if zero, controlling. It doesn't work that way. I like to, I use the metaphor of it's like a DJ mixer board with all these volume settings. So you could turn up.

ortant research. think it was: 2016

but still had elements of control and coaching within it. They found indicators that even then, the presence of some of the controlling behaviors were having negative impacts on health and well-being for athletes. So again, there's context within that, sure. It hasn't necessarily brought to light in the study, but it just goes to show the importance of this. So what are controlling behaviors? So very quickly, this could be a whole other conversation.

Controlling behaviors, making commands, telling people what to do, not offering opportunity for perspective, really closing that down, being very critical, making quick control and statements. You should, people that aren't using the carrot and the stick, a reward for something if you do that, a punishment if you do this.

we're trying to almost coerce or bribe athletes into doing it, again, as you get to learn about self-determination theory, you start to understand that when we take, the further away we go from just participation in activity being the reward in itself, then the closer we go towards quite a fragile relationship with the activity whereby these external, more extrinsic controllers are continuously required.

It's kinda like when you have, for those that maybe work with kids, you need to tell kids, look, if you behave, you get this game at end. Like that in some way isn't often the best way to get them to keep behaving well because in some respects then their behavior's conditional to giving them what they want and therefore they always require that stimulus. So it's that sort of thing.

And look, there's other ways, in terms of other controlling statements that are guilt inducing, because, why did you do that? Or a baby could do this. It's just, it's like, geez, an athlete wants to do it, but because they feel guilty and they're trying to prove something to you or whatever. And again, that from a motivational standpoint, least within the classic way in which we're trying to view motivation, where it's all about what's more autonomy supportive, should be problematic.

because well, they're driving their behavior, it's still the genesis of that driver is still external and it can lead to a lot of eventual burnout and bad effect and stuff like that. So they're just a few of the controlling behaviors that we would seek to avoid. The final autonomy support behavior again in preventing the opposite types of behavior is preventing ego involvement in athletes.

What that essentially means is it's a fancy term for making athletes feel like they are comparing themselves to other people, making athletes think that that matters. Making athletes care about winning more than maybe improvement. To the opposite of ego involvement is task involvement, which is like mastery focus, just trying to be the best version of yourself. And you might go, well, that is a form of control, ego involvement, and you might go, why? Well,

If you think about the fact that if I know that I'm turning up to training or whatever and I know that it's just an enormous comparison, I'm just being compared to my teammates all the time. Or I'm being told in this environment that I need to win in order to stay in the environment or to maintain or improve credit in the environment and nothing else seems to matter because by all means you'll know that I'm not someone that's against competition.

at all to be honest, it's just how you use it. There's an interview that I've done with Cesar Torres that we've talked a lot about that, certainly in the context of youth sport, but if there is a lot of that and there's too much of athletes comparing themselves, then there remain a possibility that their self-esteem is constantly up for grabs, so they start to actually not do the activity for the love of the activity or for the benefit that they see in it. It just becomes to do with trying to

you know, maintain self-esteem, a sense of competence through these zero sum, you know, measurements like by beating people, being outcome focused, these sorts of things. that's why that isn't great. That's not necessarily empowering someone to put themselves forward because it's another form of control by creating an environment where that comparison is rife.

because of how it controls the targets people set for themselves and the reasons why they start to come to feel that they're there for. So that's just a few behaviors. Like I say, I'm kinda, it's probably coming out anyway when I try to repress it, but some of the controlling behaviors, I'm like, it just depends. Sometimes that's maybe bad, sometimes it's not, sometimes it's required. There's dosages of everything.

autonomy support behavior, sometimes are good, sometimes, you know, it's not always the situation requires. But I think what, what I would say, I would encourage anyone that's listening to this, like, you're probably hopefully seen from these examples, insofar as autonomy support that it's not as there's there's subtler versions, there's loads of different ways in which you can provide choice as loads of, you know, there's

There's not as much of an excuse for you, hopefully, from listening to this for why you haven't tried some of these. And remember as well, it isn't enough to just try something once, twice, three times, four times, and then decide, nah, it doesn't work. Because that's something I hear a lot of times from coaches when you talk about autonomy support, is it's like, it's very idealistic. And looking at it to some point, I would agree with that, it depends. But there is such a thing as just not getting, you just need to get good at it.

And it's like anything, like the first time you do a shaping exercise or the first time you do a technical passing exercise or technical style exercise in your own sport or whatever, first thing you do that drill, you may not do it very well, you may not instruct it very well, may not, know. First thing you apply a certain model, a pedagogical model, it may not come off very well, but that doesn't mean that the pedagogy's not valid, doesn't mean that the drill wasn't good, you just need to get better at it. So I'm gonna take away that it's just,

You can be critical of some of the tonic support behaviors and you can use your expertise and your knowledge, your professional knowledge about when to apply and what way to apply them. But you really can't get away with saying that there's not some room for it in your arsenal. And you also can't really get away with saying that they don't hold up or don't have merit unless you've actually got yourself competent at doing them. I just think I want to put that on to coaches.

I think, you know, for the same reason that I say that sometimes a lot of these recommendations in psychology journals can be too idealistic. Coaches also can do better as well. So there's a bit of both there. I think we can push ourselves to try these things out. And I think ease yourself into it for that reason as well, because the hardest part with autonomy support is your...

You're relinquishing control and that isn't always easy to coaches. So I think it's the same way It's not always easy for athletes to take on autonomy It's not easy for coaches to give away So I would just encourage you to do this bit by bit baby steps Think about the subtle or behaviors first providing the rationale and knowledge and feelings of perspective. You could do that fairly quick And then think a little bit more about both your providing a meaningful choice. How do you do that? How does that work with athlete was the how you can be build that and safely incrementally and

How do we offer opportunities for initiative taking? How do we wrap that up over a certain periodized program? It's like periodized, it's a still for the athlete to learn, it's a still for you to learn. what I would say is it's vitally important, it must be there. We need to get good at it. And then we need to also be sensible in the use of it. Because again, like I always say, coaching doesn't occur in a vacuum.

Motivation is just one part of coaching. There's a lot of other things that you consider at all times. So, hopefully that's been useful to you. I've been wanting to start doing these types of conversations for a little while, so now that I'm getting started with it, expect many more. I'm gonna start to talk about different psychological needs, competence, relatedness, talk a little bit about that.

Spectrum motivational tapes, all the different contexts and situations that we could talk about, how we apply these dimensions of coach behavior and we'll get into quite a lot now in the weeks and the months ahead. So hopefully that's useful to you guys. If you enjoyed this episode, connect with me on LinkedIn and let's continue the conversation there. It'd be great to even know how you find, maybe trying them out, you know, and if you want a little bit of

conversation with me on that and LinkedIn is the place to find me and I've attached the link to that within my within the show notes so yeah guys hopefully that conversation was useful to you and I will see you next time