You hold the belief that smoking is bad for you.

You want to live a healthy lifestyle so you decide to quit smoking.

You fail, but rationalise your actions; “it could be worse I don’t drink and I exercise”.

Your actions are not aligned with your beliefs, and that uncomfortable feeling you have is ‘dissonance’.

Our mind justifies the actions by disassociating our beliefs from the behaviour. ‘Cognitive Dissonance’.

I shared the following recently on ‘X’ (formerly Twitter): @CoachMacleod

So, how does this look for coaches (or leaders) working across multiple roles, which many of us are?

Something I have often experienced first hand is identity conflict. Whether it be assisting another coach within our programme or taking on a different role in National Teams (Assistant Coach) versus club. The vast majority of staff at National Teams are Head coaches at their clubs and have to adapt to a new role at NT.

So, what does it look like..?

The coach may see themselves as a leader and innovator in their Head Coach role, but must adopt a supportive, secondary identity in the assistant role.

How could this manifest itself..?

The individual may be accustomed to taking the lead in setting a particular culture, prefer different methodology or they might strongly believe in a particular style of play or player development philosophy but must suppress it when assisting on a staff that uses a different approach.

I experienced this recently when assisting another coach at club level, mid-session I realised I had disconnected somewhat from the session as I was not the lead coach on that particular segment. Subconsciously, I was rationalising being disconnected, “I’ll add more value as lead coach anyway”, and stalling reconnecting until I was once again the lead. I’m glad to say I reset myself, but it prompted a thorough self-dressing down!

Other times the reset has been less successful and I have disconnected from the environment. Only upon later reflection did I identify the ‘why?’

It’s not all bad…

These situations can be an opportunity for growth and development. It may lead to adjusted beliefs or at least trigger reflection of ones beliefs and strengthen them based on the presented alternative.

Even if alignment is not possible, and there is a conflict of some sort, recognising the dissonance and having the strength to segment the identities with the understanding that this is what the group requires in this situation can show great self-awareness and discipline.

Of course, the ideal outcome is that the differences are discussed and a new and better environment is created using the collected knowledge of the group.

I guess recognition is the first step…

Thanks for reading!