Abstract
Effective coaches must demonstrate skills across technical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal domains. However, these skills are typically considered separately, and their respective impacts on the same outcomes have not been explored. We compared the relative influence of coaches’ technical (TC) and interpersonal (IP) skills on performance and cohesion. We collected 1048 end-of-season questionnaires over three seasons from 709 athletes (63.2% male; Mage= 20.2) representing 15 teams (17 head coaches). Participants provided perceptions of their head coach’s TC and IP skills, their individual and team’s performance, and their team’s task and social cohesion. Using multi-level linear models nested by athlete and coach, perceptions of coaches’ TC and IP skills were positively related to their influence on individual (TC: B = 0.71, p<.001; IP: B = 0.80, p<.001) and team performance (TC: B = 0.47, p<.001; IP: B = 0.46, p<.001), and task (TC: B = 0.35, p<.001; IP: B = 0.40, p<.001) and social cohesion (TC: B = 0.46, p<.001; IP: B = 0.50, p<.001). Despite both skills remaining significant predictors of all outcomes when entered simultaneously (ps< .001), IP skills were more strongly related to individual performance (B = 0.59 vs. 0.31) and task (B = 0.35 vs. 0.22) and social cohesion (B = 0.29 vs. 0.16), whereas TC skills were more strongly related to team performance (B = 0.29 vs. 0.26). These findings underscore the importance of evidence-based training that encompasses all dimensions of coaching, including developing coaches’ interpersonal and technical skills.
