Badminton Coaching Styles

A suitable Badminton Coaching Style is the second decision you need to make right after you have defined your own personal objectives as a coach.

Which style you choose will determine how you decide on what skills and strategies to teach, how you organize for training session and competition and what role you give your players in terms of making decisions.

Three Coaching Styles:

Command style

In the command style of badminton coaching, the coach makes all the decisions, the role of the players is just to respond to the coach's commands. The assumption underlying this approach is that the coach has superior knowledge and experience. It is his role to tell the players what to do. The player's role is to listen, to absorb and to comply, no questions asked.

Submissive Style

Coaches who adopt the submissive style make as little decision as possible. It is like 'throw out the ball and have a good time approach'. The coach provides little instruction and minimal guidance in organizing activities and resolves discipline problems only when absolutely necessary.

Coaches who adopt this style normally lack the competence to provide instruction and guidance. They are unable to meet the demand of their coaching responsibilities, or are misinformed about what coaching is. The submissive style coaches merely act as babysitters and often a poor one when come into badminton coaching by chance.

Cooperative Style

Coaches who select the cooperative style share decisions making with the players. Although they recognized their responsibility to lead and guide the players towards achieving set objectives, cooperative style coaches also know the importance of getting players involved in making certain collective decisions.

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Coaching Style Evaluated

Which style best describe you, command, submissive, or cooperative? We consider the submissive style to no ‘style' at all and urge you not to adopt it. The command style has been prevalent in the past and is commonly seen among professional, college and high school coaches. Many novice or inexperience coach adopt the command style because it is the one they have been modeling on their own previous coaches or others.

Some coaches adopt this style because it helps them conceal their own doubts about their capabilities. If the player is not permitted to question them, they can avoid explaining why they coach as they do, then their inadequacies would not be uncovered or so they think!

On the surface the command style appears effective. Good athletics teams need organization. They cannot be run effectively if participants are given too much democracy. The team members just cannot vote on every decision that needs to be made.

Indeed, the command style can be effective if winning is the primary objective of the coach. But this represents one of the major limitations of the command style. Rather than playing because they are intrinsically motivated, athletes may play for the praise of the coach or to avoid his or her wrath.

Coaches who use the command style also prevent athletes from fully enjoying the sport. The sense of accomplishment is felt by the coach but not the athletes.

The command style is increasingly being rejected today by coaches of young and adult athletes alike, for it treats athlete like a robot or slave, not as a thinking human being. The command style is not compatible with the objective of "Athletes first, Winning second".

If your objective is to help young people grow physically, psychologically, and socially through sport and if your objective is to help young people become independent, then the command style is not for you.

It is obvious by now that we favor the cooperative style of badminton coaching because it shares decision making with the athletes and foster the philosophy of "Athletes first, Winning second" objective. Some people think adopting the cooperative style means you abandon your responsibilities as a coach or that you let the players do anything they want. That's not the case at all.

Cooperative style coaches provide the structure and rules that allow players to learn to set their own goals and to strive for them. Being a cooperative style coach does not mean you avoid rules and order.

Failing to structure team activities is neglecting major coaching responsibilities. The coach faces the complex task of deciding how the structure should be in order to create the optimum climate for a player's development.

Imagine handling a wet bar of soap. If you hold it too tightly it squirts out of your hands (command style). It will slip away, if you don't grasp it firmly enough (the submissive style). Firm but gentle pressure of the cooperative style coaches is needed but they also know when it is useful to let athletes make decisions and assume responsibilities.

We know there is more to being an athlete than just having great skills. The players must also be able to cope with pressure, adapt to changing situations, be discipline and maintain concentration in order to perform well. These ingredients are nurtured routinely by cooperative style coaches, but seldom by command style coaches.

The cooperative approach places more trust on the players. This has a positive effect on self-image. It promotes openness in the social emotional climate and improves both communication and motivation. Athletes are motivated not by fear of the coach, but by a desire for personal satisfaction. Thus the cooperative style is almost always more fun for the players.

There is a price to pay, however in choosing the cooperative style of badminton coaching. This style requires more skills on the part of the coach. It means that coaches must be in control of themselves. It means that choices are seldom absolutely right or wrong. Cooperative style coaches must individualize their badminton coaching much more than command style coaches.