Helping Your Athlete ‘Manage Up’ and Navigate Conversations with Coaches, Trainers, and Professors
Has your athlete ever wondered why they aren’t getting playing time?
Do they ever express confusion about how to implement a coach’s feedback?
Are they hesitant to talk to their coach when they hit roadblocks?
Navigating conversations with authority figures is an important skill on and off the field. At its core it’s about self-advocacy and proactively clarifying and anticipating the expectations of coaches or other authority figures. In the business world, this ability is called “managing up.”
Learning to manage up will teach your athlete to analyze and adapt to the needs of their coach so they can best serve the team while achieving their personal goals. And it will give them more ownership of their athletic career as they navigate injuries, difficult feedback, and challenging team dynamics.
As a parent, you can help your athlete manage up by encouraging them to initiate communication with their coaches, especially in difficult situations. This isn’t always intuitive and can be challenging depending on the power dynamics of the team and your athlete’s comfort level speaking to authority figures.
It might be tempting to speak to the coach yourself, but premature parental intervention denies athletes the opportunity for personal growth. Rather, consider how you might facilitate a conversation with your athlete to help them prepare to resolve the situation with their coach on their own. You can also offer to role play as nothing is more helpful than practice with real time feedback.
Consider the following questions to guide your conversation with your athlete. Remind them that important discussions are typically best had face-to-face. And as part of your discussion, help your athlete consider the coach’s preferences for scheduling meetings (a certain time of day, scheduled ahead vs. walking-in during office hours, etc.).
Begin by outlining the conversation:
What is your goal for the meeting?
What do you want to understand or learn from the coach?
What do you want your coach to know and why is this information important?
Help your athlete consider the coach’s perspective:
What might your coach think or feel about this situation?
Why might your coach have their point of view and what might prevent them from seeing yours?
If you were the coach, what information would you want to know and have conveyed in this situation?
Gather any necessary information or data:
What materials or information can you bring to the meeting to help your coach understand the situation? (For example, game film, a list of questions, an academic report, etc.)
Envision how to manage this meeting:
Who do you need to be for this meeting to be successful? (Curious, humble, bold, etc.)
In a year from now, what would you like to be able to say about how you handled this challenge?
Finally, remind your athlete that navigating difficult conversations hinges on effectively listening. Nothing is more helpful than a ‘listen to learn’ mindset. And if your athlete wants to improve and earn more playing time, it may be less important to convey their perspective than to listen for what the coach is looking for and ask for concrete behavioral ways to achieve those goals.
While watching your athlete struggle may tempt you to step-in on their behalf, helping them to prepare for and manage conversations with coaches, medical personnel, and professors on their own is one of the most important things you can do to help them reach their potential in sports and life.
You can find more tips to help your athlete communicate and manage up in our book, Playing the Long Game: A Handbook for Parenting Elite and College Athletes.