Why Coaching Models Fail in Practice and How Coach Education Should Respond

Coaching models occupy a central position within contemporary coach education. From session planning frameworks to behavioural and pedagogical models, they are frequently presented as essential tools for structuring practice, guiding decision-making, and evidencing professional competence. In many qualification pathways, the ability to articulate and apply recognised models is treated as a proxy for coaching expertise.

Yet despite their prominence, many coaches report a persistent disconnect between the models they are taught and the realities they encounter in practice. Sessions rarely unfold as planned, athlete responses are unpredictable, organisational pressures intervene, and decisions must be made in real time under conditions of uncertainty. This gap between theoretical representation and lived practice raises an important question: why do coaching models so often appear to fail when applied in real-world environments?

Drawing on pedagogical and sociological perspectives of coaching practice, this article argues that the issue is not the existence of coaching models themselves, but rather how they are positioned, taught, and assessed within coach education systems.

Coaching Models In Practice Is Inherently Complex

Coaching is not a technical activity that unfolds in linear stages. In situ, coaching practice is dynamic, relational, and shaped by multiple interacting constraints. Coaches must respond simultaneously to athlete needs, group dynamics, environmental conditions, institutional expectations, and performance demands.

Empirical studies of coaching practice consistently demonstrate that decision-making is rarely sequential or orderly. Instead, it is characterised by improvisation, negotiation, and adaptation. Coaches frequently depart from plans, alter tasks mid-session, or prioritise relational management over technical outcomes. These decisions are often shaped less by formal models and more by contextual judgement, experience, and social awareness.

When coaching models are presented as accurate representations of how practice unfolds, they risk oversimplifying this reality. Linear depictions of planning, delivery, and evaluation may offer conceptual clarity, but they struggle to account for the messiness of lived coaching environments.

The Limits of Prescriptive Models

The difficulty arises when coaching models are treated as prescriptive tools rather than conceptual abstractions. In such cases, models are positioned as templates to be followed rather than lenses through which practice can be interpreted.

This prescriptive framing can create several problems. First, it encourages a compliance-based approach to coaching, where success is measured by adherence to the model rather than the quality of decision-making. Second, it implicitly suggests that deviation from the model represents poor practice, even when such deviation is necessary and contextually appropriate. Third, it risks marginalising forms of knowledge that do not fit neatly within the model, such as relational judgement, emotional intelligence, and tacit understanding.

As a result, coaches may experience frustration or self-doubt when their practice does not align with the theoretical frameworks they have been taught. Rather than questioning the suitability of the model, responsibility for this misalignment is often internalised by the coach.

Coaching Models Still Matter

It would be misguided, however, to interpret these critiques as an argument for abandoning coaching models altogether. Models serve important pedagogical purposes, particularly within coach education.

For novice coaches, models provide:

·       Structure in an otherwise overwhelming learning space

·       Shared language for discussing practice

·       Conceptual entry points into complex ideas

Models can scaffold learning, helping coaches to organise thinking and reflect more systematically on their actions. The problem is not that models exist, but that they are often misrepresented as depictions of reality rather than simplifications of it.

When models are presented without acknowledging their limitations, they risk becoming dogmatic rather than developmental.

Repositioning Coaching Models as Heuristic Frameworks

A more productive approach is to reframe coaching models as heuristic frameworks. Heuristics are not rules to be followed or steps to be completed. Instead, they are thinking tools that support judgement in complex and uncertain situations.

When coaching models are positioned heuristically, their function changes. Rather than prescribing action, they prompt inquiry. Coaches are encouraged to use models to ask better questions about their practice, such as:

·       What is happening in this environment?

·       Why might this approach be appropriate here?

·       What alternatives are available?

·       What constraints are shaping my decisions?

This repositioning aligns far more closely with the realities of coaching practice. It acknowledges that models cannot capture every variable, but can still inform thinking when used critically and flexibly.

Power, Context, and the Social Dimensions of Coaching

One of the most significant limitations of many coaching models is their relative silence on power and context. Coaching does not occur in a neutral space. It is embedded within social systems that shape what coaches feel able to do.

Organisational cultures, performance expectations, safeguarding responsibilities, parental pressure, funding structures, and institutional hierarchies all influence coaching behaviour. Coaches often operate under surveillance, whether through formal observation, informal judgement, or performance outcomes. These pressures can constrain decision-making in ways that models rarely acknowledge.

Linear coaching models often imply a level of autonomy and rational control that does not reflect these realities. By failing to account for power relations and structural constraints, models risk presenting an idealised version of coaching that few practitioners can enact consistently.

Coach education programmes that overlook these factors may unintentionally reinforce unrealistic expectations of practice.

Implications for Coach Education Pedagogy

If coaching practice is complex, uncertain, and socially situated, then coach education must reflect this reality. This requires a shift in pedagogical emphasis.

Rather than teaching models as solutions to be applied, coach education should focus on:

·       Developing critical engagement with models

·       Encouraging contextual interpretation rather than replication

·       Supporting reflective dialogue rather than procedural compliance

Learning activities that prioritise case studies, critical incidents, and reflective discussion are particularly valuable in this regard. These approaches allow learners to explore how models intersect with real-world constraints, rather than treating them as detached abstractions.

Assessment and the Problem of Model Compliance

Assessment practices play a central role in shaping how coaching models are used. When assessments reward accurate reproduction of models, learners quickly learn that compliance is valued over judgement.

This can lead to performative learning, where coaches demonstrate theoretical alignment for assessment purposes while relying on different forms of knowledge in practice. The model becomes something to be cited rather than something to think with.

Alternative assessment approaches that value justification, reasoning, and contextual awareness can help reposition models as heuristic tools. In such systems, learners are evaluated not on whether they followed a model, but on how effectively they used it to inform decision-making.

Rethinking Competence in Coaching

At the heart of this discussion lies a deeper question: what does competence in coaching actually mean?

If competence is defined as adherence to predefined models, then deviation appears as failure. If competence is understood as the ability to make informed, ethical, and context-sensitive decisions, then models become one resource among many.

High-quality coaching is not characterised by perfect alignment with theoretical frameworks, but by the capacity to navigate complexity responsibly. This includes recognising when models are useful, when they are insufficient, and when alternative forms of knowledge must take precedence.

Conclusion

Coaching models often fail in practice not because they are inherently flawed, but because they are frequently positioned in ways that misrepresent the nature of coaching work. When treated as prescriptive representations of reality, they struggle to accommodate the uncertainty, relational dynamics, and power structures that shape real coaching environments.

Reframing coaching models as heuristic frameworks offers a more honest and pedagogically sound approach. Used in this way, models support learning, reflection, and professional judgement without constraining practice. For coach education programmes, the challenge is not to abandon models, but to teach them in ways that acknowledge complexity, uncertainty, and the social realities of coaching practice.

References

Cushion, C. J., Armour, K. M., & Jones, R. L. (2006). Locating the coaching process in practice: Models ‘for’ and ‘of’ coaching. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 11(1), 83–99.