WHY WE NEED MORE FEMALE HEAD COACHES IN FOOTBALL

                                                   

With the introduction of the Women's Coach Accelerating Program via the AFL in the middle of 2022, there is finally a real and transparent pathway for female coaches into the  AFLW and hopefully, AFL ranks. 

I watched a coaching seminar from St Kilda's season 1 AFLW Coach Pete Searle a few years ago and she mentioned some thing that has stuck with me ever since - the male leadership model is built on a hierarchy of judging yourself and others based on where they sit which within that hierarchy which is an ego-based leadership system, but female leadership is about developing lots of friends, connections and networking but without no hierarchy there are no ego's as everyone is treated as though they are on the same level.

What it comes down is that there is a very-real male "way" of coaching that has ingrained itself in all footy leagues and clubs and the 18% female head coaching % of the AFLW is probably similar in all the local women's leagues around Australia which, if it isn't already, will have huge implications on participation rates which is what sport at all ages is all about, if that % doesn't increase. 

This study comes provides reasons for adding how female head coaches can improve the culture of your club/team and how you can go about welcoming them.

• Coaches’ behaviors and interactions with the athletes they coach are affected by their own, and their athlete's individual differences in characteristics, including gender
• The abundance of males in coaching and the masculine norms it brings can have an impact on the prevalence of certain coaching behaviors in that space
• Are male coaching practice’s conducive to women's sporting experiences?
• Coaches who adopt controlling behaviors such as intimidation, tangible rewards and controlling feedback have the potential to thwart athlete's feelings of autonomy, competence and relatedness, which leads to burn/drop out and further issues such as depression and disordered eating (search Google for the recent article on the Matilda's dealing with this.)
• Attitudes and beliefs were the strongest predictors of coaching behaviors relative to concussion safety and found that difference in attitude/beliefs were patterned by the sex of the coach and the sex of the team being coached
• These differences led to gender based differential behavior in communication behavior regarding concussion
• Female coaches are less likely to express respect for athlete's playing hurt and less likely to make them feel guilty about missing games
• Male coaches engage significantly more frequently in trying to keep control and general technical instruction and significantly less in general encouragement than female coaches
• Female athlete's perceive male coaching behaviors as a more masculine style of communication and interaction via screaming and rough language whereas females exhibited more understanding and caring language
• Female coaches score higher on the social support sub-scale than male coaches
• Safety is paramount to creating a positive experience by behaving in ways that promote safety and injury prevention but it is at odds with popular heroic narratives that normalise and celebrate playing hurt
• You want players to be after mastery (self improvement, effort, task mastery, cooperative learning, having fun) but by force of habit they adopt to an ego-driven environment (playing to win, awards, punishments, preferable treatment of better players) which is associated with negative participation outcomes via anxiety, low intrinsic motivation, lowered enjoyment and sport attrition (junior football in a sentence!)
• Autonomy supported coaching draws on the principles of the self determination theory which examines determinants (sociocontextual factors) of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and its impact on athlete outcomes
• Your coaching needs to provide fun, above everything else
• 46% of all coaches (in the study) were volunteers and only 31% of those were women
• 67% of females had paid positions v males 43% (read on to find out why)
• Females are also largely absent from coaching our youngest athletes (6 – 10yrs old)
• 50% of female coaches had children v males 77%
• Volunteer coaches are usually male and team administrators and the like are usually females, leaving the status quo and the path for females for coaching continually challenging
• Paid positions may help females get into the male-dominated coaching domain as it can help them mitigate the constraints of females in coaching
• When women do coach, they bring behaviors supportive of autonomy-supportive coaching and safety
• They less often communicate the need to be tough
• Their coaching behaviors are generally oriented towards facilitating positive youth experiences and communal behaviors
• Female coaches may help steer the youth sports culture away from the usual masculine ethos of sport leadership and organisational structures, especially if they can be valued for their different skill set at club level
• The difference between male and female coaching is actually a barrier of entry for female coaches, who if possessing these traits, aren't really encouraged or allowed to use them
• Female coaches can also experience disapproval for coaching "like" a male or a female, being perceived as competent when displaying masculine leadership behaviors, or likable when displaying feminine relational behaviors, but are rarely accepted when displaying both
• If female coaches find their behaviors aren't compatible with the current masculine structure, they will often opt out of coaching, tamper down their behaviors to avoid coaching against the grain or simply conform to the prevailing structure
• Adherence to a masculine-only structure can be detrimental to young athlete's development of a balanced understanding of leadership and then youth sports simply becomes a space for the reproduction, not disruption, of gendered notions of gender, power and leadership
• Female coaches serve as positive role models for younger females and provides great gender representation
• For youth sport to fulfill its potential, female head coaching numbers need to reach the same levels as male head coaches
• Clubs should directly ask women to coach and offer options for co-coaching if need be (AFL Accelerated Program)
• When aiming to recruit mother’s into coaching, do so by advertising for female coaching traits from above so they can immediately identify and align with the position immediately and give them confidence that they will be free to coach in the way they prefer to without interference