The New Coaching Strategies Gen Z Responds To
By
Will Brown
Contributor Updated: 18 February 2025
Will Brown Contributor
William Brown is a Content Writer with strong expertise in US and global gambling industry trends. Having covered the local sports betting market since the repeal of PASPA in 2018, William approaches his gambling guides with passion and diligence. He is a keen player of online slots, blackjack, and a regular sports bettor.
The New Coaching Strategies
Whether you agree with it or not, there is a stereotype that Gen Z is softer than the generations that came before it. While the rising stars of major sports leagues prove this wrong by their mere existence, there are new coaching strategies Gen Z players respond to more than others that address their particular experiences. In this guide, we’ve looked at the different training approaches adapted for the generation to nurture their physical, psychological, and social acumen.
Intro to Gen Z Coaching Strategies in Sport
Before diving into the five Gen Z coaching strategies for leaders, we’ve discussed the importance of having adapted approaches to training this younger generation. First and foremost, coaches need to understand the observable differences in the generation so they can effectively guide them to their full potential.
From there, we’ve looked at the strategies, including holding different types of training sessions and harnessing the individual talents of athletes. As you’ll learn, the common differentiator for Gen Z is its embrace of individuality, so many of the strategies revolve around reaching the individual to create a team.
- Importance of Gen Z Coaching Strategies
- Understanding Gen Z Differences
- Harnessing Individual’s Passions
- Self-Guided Training Sessions
- Throw Open Training Sessions
- Host Challenge Sessions
- Hold Emotion-Based Workshops
- Feedback is Essential
The Importance of Gen Z Coaching Strategies for Leaders
While human nature doesn’t change with each new generation, changes in society, culture, and technology have major impacts on how people view the world. Therefore, projecting the expectations and approaches that have worked in previous generations of athletes can be ineffective or counter-productive for coaches. If they are looking to create top talents, they must understand these fundamental differences in beliefs and behaviors.
Although some coaches may balk at this, they would be doing a disservice to their athletes by dismissing these unique needs. Instead, coaches should accept these challenges and refine coaching strategies. Gen Z players respond to build athlete’s resilience, social skills, relationships with technology, and on-field prowess and lead them to success.
Understanding Gen Z Player Differences
As the first generation of people to have grown up in a fully digital environment, Gen Z athletes have been heavily impacted by this constant engagement with technology. Therefore, how they interact with the world is different from the generations before. There are both strengths and weaknesses that are common to the generation.
Strengths include higher emotional awareness and openness to their feelings, as well as an acceptance of the importance of mental health and individual expression. Gen Z is also typically more tolerant of diversity, and their access to online resources has given them a high level of sports knowledge. They also tend to be extremely aspirational.
However, Gen Z athletes have been recognized to seek instant gratification over long-term success, struggling to work toward delayed results. Their high aspirations also often create a gap between their current standings, leading to low self-esteem and confidence. Challenges with time management, prioritization, and personal responsibility are also commonly reported.
Gen Z coaching strategies in sport must address the issue of gratification, personal responsibility, and confidence to move forward. Fortunately, harnessing their strengths of sports knowledge, emotional openness, and aspirations can be effective. The following five strategies aim to address these challenges.
Harnessing Individual’s Passions
Modern coaches of Gen Z athletes will benefit from taking the time to understand each athlete, their goals, and what drives them. Their fundamental motives will vary and could include everything from wanting to impress their loved ones, be the best in their field, or earn fame and glory.
This understanding can then be used to inspire them, especially during difficult periods. Among the most important Gen Z coaching strategies for leaders is to regularly check in and gauge athletes’ goals, remind them of their motives, and hold them accountable if they are slipping. These regular reminders and check-ins can form a psychological base that helps them seek delayed gratification.
Understanding their aspirations can also help to form a plan into manageable steps. This could relate to what they must achieve every week or season, with specific targets set every session. The focus should be on consistent progress, with coaches being supportive and non-judgmental yet honest about how they are performing.
Self-Guided Training Sessions
Once coaches understand how the individual player works, they could propose a self-guided training strategy. Of course, the aim isn’t to completely hand over your responsibility as a coach, but instead to nurture personal responsibility among athletes. How this is implemented should depend on the player.
For example, if the athlete is especially reliant on support from coaches, consider guiding them to develop a 20 to 30-minute training block within a two-hour session. This could focus on an area they enjoy working in or an area they have identified they are struggling with. From there, athletes could be given autonomy over an entire training session, individually or for their team.
To implement it correctly, coaches should provide parameters of what to work on. Coaches have reported that self-guided athletes often create more challenging sessions than easy ones and note that a stronger work ethic can form. It also provides helpful insights into the athletes coaches can use going forward.
Improving Gen Z sports participation is the fundamental goal of this strategy. Be aware that this approach will not always work, and some sports require different training approaches and recovery periods to adhere to. This same approach applies when betting at our list of online betting sites, especially on player props.
Throw Open Training Sessions
Similarly to the previous strategy, open sessions allow athletes to work on their autonomy. Essentially, these sessions see athletes arrive with no pre-determined schedule set. They are then to work on areas based on their perceptions of what needs to improve. The coach’s role here is to facilitate their choices rather than to dictate.
Like the other coaching strategies Gen Z responds to, this can harness individuals’ knowledge of the sport in a self-guided framework. Coaches can then use their skills to translate athlete knowledge into practical applications. That said, coaches must consider any resource or time constraints and whether skill work or conditioning is required before holding an open session.
Host Challenge Sessions
There is an argument to be made that younger athletes haven’t faced the same adversity in sports as previous generations. For example, some school sports days no longer award medals for placing, which some believe coddles children while failing to recognize the talents of winners. Therefore, it may be essential to develop resilience in athletes.
In challenge sessions, coaches set extremely difficult or even impossible challenges with clear physical and psychological objectives. They are most effective when the athletes are aware of the physical and psychological benefits of the exercise beforehand, as well as having challenges that emphasize teamwork, which is a pressing need in Gen Z coaching strategies in sport.
Challenge sessions aim to build resilience in players by putting them through adversity and having them experience failure. By facing these struggles as a team, they can recognize the importance of peer support, build community, and recognize other individuals’ roles in team sports.
Hold Emotion-Based Workshops
Although the topic of Gen Z’s emotional development has been discussed ad nauseam, many of the coaching strategies Gen Z responds to are those around emotional self-regulation. It’s no secret that the generation’s technology use has been linked to anxiety disorders, so this must be addressed.
One successful approach has seen younger players coached by older athletes on how they’ve learned to deal with technology. This could be putting their phone on sleep mode, using meditation apps, not reading comments, or setting usage timers. Athletes will be more receptive to peer feedback and advice and could hold each other accountable for their technology use.
Workshops could also be held to help athletes develop an emotional roadmap of what their ambitions will require from them as athletes and humans. They can then consider how they’ll handle challenges or their responses to self-doubt and external criticism. This pre-visualization technique can prepare them for emotional challenges long before they arise.
Feedback is Essential
The final point we wish to make on Gen Z and sport training is that player input is essential to each strategy’s success. Coaches should seek feedback regularly to gauge athlete needs or concerns. It may be worthwhile to establish buddy systems with senior athletes to further analyze their emotional state. The best strategy will have athletes feel supported and empowered to achieve their aspirations.
