Towards a balanced perspective on autonomy-providing and structuring coach behaviors to optimize athletes’ well-being and societal skills.

Coaches are crucial in creating a climate in which athletes can socially and psychologically thrive, develop societal skills such as proactive behavior, and still ensure progression which is necessary to obtain long-term motivation. Surprisingly, research on both (unilateral) autonomy-providing and structuring coach behaviors shows mixed evidence regarding these outcomes. As both types of coach behaviors are not mutually exclusive, the aim of this project is to develop fine-grained insights in configurations of autonomy-providing and structuring coach behaviors, and how these configurations are related to athletes’ psychological and social well-being, their societal skill development and progression. Given that coaches do not operate in a social vacuum, we aim to discover which configurations of autonomy-providing and structuring coach behaviors are beneficial for these outcomes depending on athletes’ coach leadership expectations and athletes’ degree of competence frustration. By translating these findings in a coach education program and testing its effectiveness, this project will not only contribute to coaching science, but will also provide knowledge which will be structurally integrated within coach education programs in Flanders. In this way, coaches can be trained in adapting their behavior to promote athletes’ psychosocial well-being, develop their societal skills and ensure sufficient progression.