Soccer Toolbox

Know Your Coaching Personality Type

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This article and other helpful coaching tools can be found at Coach Dawn Writes

By Dawn Redd-Kelly

I think personality assessment should be a must for every team.  Why?  Because I think the cause of most conflict is expecting others to act like you do.  I’d written before about the DiSC assessment I use, focusing on your team’s interactions with one another.  Now I want to talk about coach-player interaction.  Even though most people are a mixture of more than one letter type, see if you can find your top one or two personality types here.  I believe it will help you as you work with your student-athletes.

The 4 DiSC personality types and how they impact your coaching style

D’s are dominant and like to be in charge.  I’d hazard a guess that a lot of coaches are D’s.  On the positive side, D’s enjoy solving problems and trust their ability to produce results.  At their best, D’s can mobilize teams to solve a problem or achieve a goal.  That sounds awesome right?  As Newton said though, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  D’s can be blunt to the point of being rude and may make rash and reckless decisions.  At their worst, D’s can be bullies, loud mouths, and tyrants.

What to do: Understand that not everyone thinks as quickly as you do…give them time to mull things over.  D’s could do well to build bridges and relationships rather than expecting people to comply just because they say so.  I mean, your team will comply because you’re the boss.  But if you want your team to play for you and not in spite of you, D’s should see the value of cooperation.

I’s are influential and the life of the party.  These are your extroverted folks who love to be around people.  I’s are charming, optimistic, and outgoing…those we’d call a “people person”. At their best, I’s can be inspirational and communicate a vision or goal in a manner that motivates others to work toward it.  I’s see the best in others and help them to believe in their abilities.  Sounds like an awesome coach, huh?  On the other side of the coin, I’s dislike details and can seem scattered.  I’s can sometimes lack follow-through, rarely finishing what they begin…they overpromise and underdeliver.

What to do: Understand that you can get folks super fired up with your words…so that means that you’ve got to deliver on those promises.  You don’t want to have a group of ten freshmen who you told would be starters…and your sport only starts five!  I’s should try to listen more and talk less.

S’s are the steady Eddy’s out there.  S’s are loyal, friendly, and supportive…they are team players.  At their best, S’s can calm tensions and stabilize unsettled situations.  S’s work hard to create stable and harmonious environments.  Does this sound like you, Coach?  Well, on the flip side, S’s are too hard on themselves and take criticism other their work very personally.  Creatures of habit, S’s enjoy their daily routines and are resistant to change.

What to do: Understand that flexibility is the name of the game.  It’s great that S’s will have a routine and a to-do list prepared for each day…you’ve just got to be prepared for things to go sideways every now and then.  One of your players might get sick (on the day where she’s a big part of your practice plan!) or it may rain when you were planning on taking your team outside.  S’s can have their beloved plans…just be willing to adjust it.

C’s are conscientious and careful.  If you’re a C, you like to be right and are a stickler for details.  You have very high standards for yourself…and those around you.  Where I’s are outgoing and boisterous, C’s are quiet, reserved, and business-like.  C’s are fair and objective and will always maintain high standards, even when asked to compromise.  That’s pretty good, right?  At their worst, C’s can get bogged down in details…some would call them a nit picker.  C’s prefer to work alone and need to analyze all available options before making a decision.

What to do: C’s should understand that some decisions have a timeline and need quick action.  Your assistants understand that you’ve charted stats for all practices during the season and the numbers say that you’ve got the right lineup out there.  But right now it’s not working and you’ve got to make a change.  C’s are cautious by nature, so you should surround yourself with folks who are more adventurous.

Each season, we try to create team chemistry among our athletes and help them to get to know one another, but it’s just as important that the coach knows their personality type…and how it’ll interact with each player.

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Are you tired of walking into practice and seeing lackluster effort from your players?  Have you had it with trying to get your female athletes to care about the team as much as you do??

Click here to find out more about Coach Dawn’s eBook: Motivating Female Athletes

Comes with a FREE PowerPoint presentation called Guarantee Your Success: Using John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success To Increase Your Team’s Cohesion.


Plan Your Day Like You Plan Your Practice

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By Mandy Green,

Mandy is the  Head Soccer Coach at The University of South Dakota. She is also an Author, Speaker, Trainer and Consultant. She has posted many useful tools for coaches on her site Busy.Coach

I am speaking in a few weeks to all of the amazing coaches who will be at Camp Elevate.  As I am preparing my Time Management 101 speech, I am remembering a conversation that I had with a coach while we were out recruiting a few weeks ago.

It went something like this. “Mandy, I know that I am stressed, overwhelmed, busy doing random stuff all day, and not making the progress I want with my program.   I know I need to manage my time better and get organized, but I don’t even know where to begin.”

My response to this coach was that I believe all coaches need to approach time management in exactly the same way that they approach their practices.

For a typical practice:

  1. Every minute of practice is accounted for and no time is wasted.
  2. Everything is proactively planned in advance and organized.
  3. Top priorities to work on take up the majority of practice and are worked on first.
  4. Tasks have been delegated to other coaches based on their strengths.
  5. There are water breaks in between activities.
  6. Whistles or horns sound when it is time to move onto the next stage of practice
  7. Coaches reflect after practice is done on what went well and what didn’t so they can make tomorrow better.

BUT, for some reason when it comes to getting work done in the office, a lot of coaches just simply go into their office with no plan, react to everything around them, take no scheduled breaks, and choose to do whatever grabs their attention next until it is time to leave the office! Doing things this way is very inefficient and a lot of time is wasted.  And worst of all, no progress is made towards building the program of your dreams!!

The more structure you have during your work time means you get more work done.  It means you get further ahead with your program.  It means you have to work less outside of your work time.

Ok, let’s plan your day in the office tomorrow just like you would plan practice.

When you start planning your day in the office, just like you would when planning practices for your team, make sure to strategically think about and write down what you could do during the day to move your program forward.

  1. Plan everything in advance the day or night before. While there are exceptions to the rule, generally you can’t expect to just show up for practice with no plan of what you are going to do for the day and have it be a good productive practice.  The same holds true for the office.  Write down on a master to-do list all of the tasks you need to get done the next day.
  2. Then decide which of those tasks that need to get done are the most important for moving your program forward and then schedule them into your calendar. Everything else can wait.
  3. Coaches tend to set up their practices by doing their most important drills when they know their team is focused and has the best energy. Do the same for your most important work in the office and you will produce higher quality work in a shorter amount of time.
  4. When a time limit is put on a drill, it creates urgency for coaches so they will work like crazy to get as much productive stuff done with their team in the time allotted. Like you do for your drills at practice, schedule all office tasks in 15, 30, 60, or 90 minute intervals and then keep to the clock.
  5. How much more do you accomplish with your teams when they are paying attention and putting all of their focus and energy into what you are working on in practice?  The same holds true for getting stuff done in the office. The quality of your work declines and the time it takes to get tasks done increases when you not 100% focused on the task at hand.
  6. Avoid multi-tasking. You would never jump from drill to drill as new drills pop into your head.  Once you start working on something in the office, continue to work on only that task until it is finished.

I could go on and on but you get the idea.

For you coach, once your to-do list is organized based on your goals and vision for your program, it becomes a map to guide you from morning to evening in the most effective and efficient way. This guide tells you what you have to do. It also helps you decide what is urgent and what is not, saving you a lot of time.  Time that you might have otherwise wasted on less important busy-work that isn’t necessarily going to move your program forward.