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The Hidden Impact of Toxic Coaching · RiseUp - Live Joy Your Way

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Today's episode is produced by my friends at Walk West.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: If you're looking to grow your brand and generate leads through podcast or video production, head over to walkwest.com.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's start the show.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Rise up, live joy your way.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: From emotional intelligence through cognitive distortions, certified life and wellness coach Comedy Wood is on a mission to help people see the magnificence of their own unique human spirit.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Through these small bites of self-visualization and self-confidence, you can have healthy relationships, success in business and career, and live the life you want to live.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Rise up, live joy your way.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Hi there, and welcome back to another episode of Rise Up, Live Joy Your Way.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it's morning, afternoon, or evening, thank you for taking some time out of your day to spend here with me.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: And today I want to talk about something that isn't talked about very often.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it's about bad coaching.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: I have the privilege of working with a lot of young adults, and some of them are athletes and dancers.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: And not all coaches are what I would consider necessarily the most healthy coaches.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: So while a great coach can build confidence and resilience and like a lifelong love of whatever sport or dance or music instrument, a bad coach can do just the opposite and can actually leave scars that last a long time into the future.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Some athletes and artists walk away from their craft with lessons that shape them in a positive way, but others walk away carrying anxiety, self-doubt, unresolved trauma that impacts them for years and potentially even decades.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I want to talk about today.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: I want to talk about that trauma that can be taken in and can be carried with you.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about the difference between toxic coach and a bad coach and the long-term effects of bad coaching.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because oftentimes schools and organizations are not trauma-informed.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so we have to learn how to become trauma-informed so we can break this cycle.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: So what makes a bad coach?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just sort of define, and I'm saying it in quotes, bad coaching.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: I really don't love to say good or bad.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's just the not helpful, not healthy coaching.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: So the difference between a coach who lacks strong leadership skills and a coach who's outright toxic.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: There's a difference between those two things.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: So one who lacks those leadership skills might be disorganized.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: They might lack communication skills, or they may struggle to motivate their team or the player or the artist, whichever dynamic we're in.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: They might not fully understand, you know, necessarily how to be the right leader, how to be a coach, or maybe they don't understand the sport or the art as well as they need to in terms of teaching it to somebody else.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so while it's frustrating, it may not necessarily be harmful.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: However, a toxic coach is something entirely different.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: A toxic coach is somebody who crosses the line into emotional, verbal, or even potentially physical harm.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: They berate, humiliate their athletes or their artists, whoever they're working with, instead of offering constructive feedback.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: They use fear, shame, or intimidation as a strategy and they push past healthy physical and mental limits, completely ignoring injuries or emotional well-being.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: And they do play favorites.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: And when they play these favorites, they can sometimes pit athletes or artists against one another.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: They fail to take accountability for their own mistakes, but they hold players or individuals to their highest and most impossible standards.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: And this kind of coaching doesn't just create a tough environment, it creates those lasting psychological and emotional and mental damage to the player or to the individual who's being coached.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: So when we're thinking about this, we have to talk about the long-term effects of toxic coaching, right?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because you can't just say, okay, this is not something we like.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: We have to look at, well, what's what's the cost of this?
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, because coaches hold a tremendous amount of power over the individuals that they're working with, especially if they are young adults, adolescents or young adults, because they're still being shaped.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: So their words, their actions, their leadership contributes to how these kids or young adults see themselves and influences them.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: And that influence doesn't disappear when they stop playing the sport or dancing or playing the instrument.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: And these former individual, former athletes and artists end up dealing with low self-esteem.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of them have perfectionism and fear of failure that they end up internalizing and start to believe that if they make a mistake, then they are worthless.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: They often deal with anxiety and depression because when you're under the constant criticism or pressure, you almost continually hear it in the back of your own head.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: They have difficulty trusting other authority figures because they carry the belief that most of the leaders that they're going to be dealing with are manipulative or unreliable.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then they also struggle with self-advocacy because they were probably put down when they tried to speak up for themselves.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so then they start to feel powerless to ever speak up for themselves in other aspects of their life, whether it be in workplaces or relationships, because they're conditioned to stay silent.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: So this doesn't just affect an athlete or an artist.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: It can affect any of us, any of us who are in an environment where we're dealing with either a coach or a leader.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: It happens at the youth level, it happens at high school, it happens in college, it happens in professional atmospheres where we're still dealing with teachers and mentors.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Trauma-informed leadership in these in these industries is so important because the effects of bad coaching or bad leadership, it doesn't just stay on the field.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it shows up in these places like classrooms and workplaces and in relationships.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: And these schools and organizations need to start to understand that these individuals who are being coached don't just leave the trauma of the toxic coach behind when whatever they're involved in is over.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: These coaches are mentors, they are role models, they are authority figures.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: And if they don't understand that they are creating trauma, they risk doing serious damage.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: And this is why schools and programs that utilize coaches and mentors need to start asking themselves are we training our coaches in a trauma-informed way?
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: Do we have the emotional and mental health resources available for the individuals that we're working with?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: Are we creating an environment where athletes do feel safe to speak up?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: Are we creating an environment where our dancers feel safe to speak up or our musicians feel safe to speak up?
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: Do we hold these individuals who are leading and teaching our individuals accountable for the impact that they're having on the player's mental and emotional health?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because winning or performing should never come at the cost of someone's emotional and mental well-being.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do we start breaking this cycle?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's four key steps that we, or a few key steps, excuse me, that we have to look at.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: The first thing, and I talk about this routinely when I'm talking about making a change, it's we have to start becoming aware and recognizing the impact.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: So we need to start acknowledging when there is toxic coaching happening again, because it can cause trauma.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not about being soft or weak, it's about understanding that chronic stress, chronic fear, humiliation all have effects.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: And we need to start educating the people that we're putting in charge of training or coaching.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: We need to start creating space for trauma-informed leaderships.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: So these individuals who are running these programs should be required to learn about emotional safety, emotional regulation, effective leadership strategies, and learn how to build the individuals up rather than tear them down.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: They have to, these schools and organizations, they have to start taking responsibility for the environments that they're fostering.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: And we need to start encouraging the individuals who are involved to speak up.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, athletes, dancers, musicians, all these individuals who are doing these amazing things, we have to give them space to speak up and to use their voice because that toxic coaching, those effects are, they stay with them long after.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it will, it will create long-term effects for them.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so we have to give them space to advocate for their needs and to feel safe bringing that up to us and to create those boundaries, help them create the boundaries that they need.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: And we do need to start making an effort to support former athletes and um artists, because if they were impacted by toxic coaching, we have to get them to understand that they're not broken, there's nothing wrong with them, and that they can actually work through the trauma that was created through their past experience.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's not about being too soft, it's not about not being good enough, it's not about not being worthy.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's about recognizing that if you were in one of these situations, you were a survivor of an environment that failed you.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why this conversation matters.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: It matters because we have to recognize how the lack of emotional safety really has long-term effects on individuals, especially young adults who are still being nurtured into who they are going to be as adults later on in life.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: So it matters that we're having the conversation.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: It matters that we pay attention to this.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: I myself have become extraordinarily passionate because I'm a mom of not just an artist, but also athletes.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I really do believe in trauma-informed leadership, not just in this environment, but also in the workplace.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I do talk about this, I do workshops about this because having the leaders understand trauma and understand what it means to create an unhealthy environment versus a healthy environment is so important.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: If this episode resonated with you and there's somebody that you feel like would benefit from it, I do hope that you'll think about sharing it with them.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: And for those of you who'd like to maybe discuss what coaching could look like, feel free to book a time to speak with me anytime at coachwithcomedy.com.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: And until next time, stay well.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to Rise Up, Live Joy Your Way.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: For more information, book a chat with comedy at www.chatwithcomedy.com.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Or visit her website at www.comedywood.com.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: You can also find comedy on Facebook or Instagram.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Username it's authenticme.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.