Planning Skills

Delivery Skills

Management Skills

Planning refers to a coach’s ability to formulate the successful actions and strategies required to pursue and achieve a certain outcome in line with organisational guidelines while remaining within the limits of available resources (Lyle, 2002) .

The process includes identifying and setting achievable and realistic goals, developing action plans and strategies for the achievement of outcomes, monitoring progress and implementing any required changes (Enos et al., 2003) .

Highly developed delivery skills are considered essential for effective coaching (Lyle, 2002) and include ability to:

Individualise the learning process (Saury & Durand, 1998) .

Encourage, inspire and motivate others (Saury & Durand, 1998) .

Adapt practices to best suit particular situations (Côté & Gilbert, 2009) .

Work with athletes of different ages and competition levels (Côté & Gilbert, 2009) .

Communicate effectively and lead by example (Côté & Gilbert, 2009) .

Manage complex situations (Saury & Durand, 1998) .

Focus on the personal development of athletes by combining the teaching of life skills with the coaching of sport skills (Côté & Gilbert, 2009) .

Fulfilling specific managerial-type tasks is an integral component of the coaching process (Lyle, 2002) . Such tasks include:

Engaging with key stakeholders (Lyle, 2002) .

Building strong relationships with people (Perkins et al., 2014) .

Prioritising tasks (Lyle, 2002) .

Cultivating safe, welcoming and positive training/learning environments (Perkins & Hahn, 2019) .

Developing policies and procedures (Lyle, 2002) .

Overseeing budgets and performing a range of other administrative tasks (Lyle, 2002) .