Balancing performance-based expectations with a holistic perspective on coaching: a qualitative study of Swedish women’s national football team coaches’ practice experiences

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore how an exclusive sample of women’s national football team coaches described how they implement careful coaching while facing social and organizational pressure to win medals. Method: To consider coaches’ negotiations, we drew on Noddings’ concept of caring. Using an interpretive research paradigm, we conducted in-depth interviews with five Swedish women’s national football team coaches. An abductive approach was used to simultaneously process the theoretical framework of “ethics of care” and the empirical data. Results: The coaches unanimously adopted a holistic perspective to coaching. The coaching strategies they described included promoting players’ development, well-being, and sustainable elite performance; listening to the players’ voices and engaging in dialogue; and creating a positive environment and promoting fair play. Conclusions: These findings demonstrate that the women coaches, despite performance pressure, adopt caring coaching in the form of Noddings’ pedagogical modelling, dialogue, and confirmation strategies, and provide an example of how coaches can adopt caring, holistic, and athlete-centred coaching while working at the highest level of competitive sport and achieving competitive success.

Sustainable elite sport: Swedish athletes’ voices of sustainability in athletics

“…Barker-Ruchti, Barker, and Annerstedt (2014) demonstrated the importance of reflective learning on trusting and respectful actions in generating inclusive and performance-enhancing processes. Annerstedt and Lindgren (2014) demonstrated, as Dohlsten, Barker-Ruchti, and Lindgren (2018) and Lindgren and Barker-Ruchti (2017) have later demonstrated outside of the special issue, that coaches' caring and holistic thinking can positively influence health and well-being while performing at the highest levels of sport.…”

“…The sport as community orientation, in contrast, is characterised by a focus on process, athletes as human beings and a focus on individual needs. These characteristics refer to elite sport stakeholders' focus on responsibility, respect and diversity, which offer elite sport the potential to become more sustainable (Annerstedt and Lindgren, 2014;Barker-Ruchti et al, 2014;Dohlsten et al, 2018;Lindgren and Barker-Ruchti, 2017) .…”

Perspectives on power relations in human health and well-being

“…Three main categories reflected key components in sports clubs: participation and influence, including having their voices heard and participating on equal terms; social connectedness, including friends and fellowship and emotional support and security; and good conditions reflected in low costs and the development of facilities (Lindgren et al, 2017). Moreover, Lindgren and Barker-Ruchti (2017) illuminate how a sample of female Swedish national football coaches describe how they carefully manage interpersonal relationships with respect to the well-being of their players as they face social and organizational pressure to win competitions. In-depth interviews were conducted with five female football coaches, and this resulted in the overarching theme of “a holistic perspective of every person”.…”

“…In-depth interviews were conducted with five female football coaches, and this resulted in the overarching theme of “a holistic perspective of every person”. Four categories revealed that female football coaches focus on promoting development, well-being, and sustainability, listening to feelings of demands and expectations, managing challenging behaviour, and promoting fair play for the greater good (Lindgren & Barker-Ruchti, 2017). …”

Analytical attractions and the techno-continuum: Conceptualising data obsessions and consequences in elite sport

“…Such work has emphasised a necessity to acknowledge the notion of craft as fundamental to (read also, as the essence of) coaching. Moreover, debates here have reiterated that in response to various contextual forces, there is a need for a restoration of humanity within the role (e.g., coaches who care, are empathetic, and exercise degrees of emotion and subjectivity) (Lindgren & Barker-Ruchti, 2017;Jones & Turner, 2006).…”