Educate the players about Emotional Intelligence
Roar Guru
By Rickety Knees, 13 Aug 2009 Rickety Knees is a Roar Guru
- Tagged:
- AFL, Cricket, Emotional Intelligence, football, Rugby League, Rugby Union
Related coverage
The front and back pages of the tabloids this year have been littered with stories of players from rugby league, rugby union, AFL, football and even cricket bringing the game into disrepute.
These talented young men are inducted into elite training programs where their personal status is immeasurably enhanced. They have very high levels of testosterone, which serves to give them the drive to excel in their sport.
Testosterone also underpins their libido. The higher the testosterone, the higher the libido.
The combination of status and libido is a potent mixture. When combined with alcohol it can become volatile and often leads to anger, especially when either status is challenged or testosterone driven desire is denied.
This, however, applies to all males. It is a fact of life that we all have to cope with. The difference is that only the select few have the complete and undivided attention of the tabloids.
The solution to better player behaviour is education in emotional intelligence (EI), which is the first step.
EI is having a high level of self-awareness: recognizing and acknowledging a feeling as it happens. Managing emotions, handling feelings so that they are appropriate, realizing what is behind a feeling, finding ways to handle fears and anxieties, anger, and sadness.
The final step is to have a strong club mentoring program where senior players are mentored by respected older men and junior players are mentored by senior players.
Each mentor is held accountable for the actions of his charge.
Anger is a secondary emotion which, if understood, can be managed appropriately. In doing so, it will help to minimalise players bringing the game into disrepute.
Enjoy sports? Enjoy a bargain? All Sports Online has your favourite sporting brands at up to 70% off. Online only, premium quality sporting goods and merchandise at discounted prices. Get a deal now.
Do you have what it takes to become a sports writer? Write for the roar
Other Sports articles
- Victoria Azarenka vs Maria Sharapova: Australian Open women’s final live scores, blog (89)
- Why I won’t be watching the Sharapova-Azarenka final (51)
- The sporting fallacy of the Olympic ‘Games’ (45)
- Djokovic vs Nadal was great, but do we need six-hour finals? (36)
- Sonny Bill needs to start boxing full time (36)
- Sonny Bill looking sharp for his first real test (29)
- Sonny Bill wins title in first round (25)
- London’s Olympic Games have a long way to come (9)
- New champ Williams looking to next fight (5)
- Aust and GB aim to convert 4ths to bronze
- Young pitcher signs big deal with Red Sox (7)
- World Cup Darts heartbreak in Hamburg (3)
- Mayweather and Pacquiao have shamed boxing (12)
- Will Tom Brady’s legacy be affected by one drop? (19)
- London’s Olympic Games have a long way to come (9)
- World Cup Darts heartbreak in Hamburg (3)
- Mayweather and Pacquiao have shamed boxing (12)
- Will Tom Brady’s legacy be affected by one drop? (19)
- Sonny Bill needs to start boxing full time (44)
- Lachlan Murdoch squashing FTA sport for Fox’s benefit (4)
- Sonny Bill Williams vs Clarence Tillman III: Live updates, blog [video] (181)
- Explore:
- AFL, Cricket, Emotional Intelligence, football, Rugby League, Rugby Union
oikee said | August 13th 2009 @ 11:52am | Report comment
Good to see someone who knows what he talking about. This would have to be the best post ever posted by any member of this forum. Yet you have not got one post as yet. Maybe your too intellegent for a sports poster.
With Greg Inglis all i think happened , they were not compatable and he does not know how to split up with someone. End of story. Great post, i had thought about this yesterday.
Redb said | August 13th 2009 @ 1:20pm | Report comment
Rickety,
Maybe RL needs to conduct psychometric testing for recruits. Other sports like NFL and AFL do these days. Behaviorial patterns are picked up, how people handle situations,etc. Very common in business these days.
Redb
MyGeneration said | August 13th 2009 @ 1:45pm | Report comment
Redb, are you suggesting these tests be conducted merely to identify behavioural traits and perhaps what kind of mentoring might be required, or something more final?
I have worked in businesses that placed a lot of weight on psychometric testing and, from the results, I think they might be a helpful guide but nothing more. I have worked with people who apparently passed these tests with flying colours and were, frankly, crap at their jobs, so I am a bit dubious about their overall value. But then I’m always skeptical about people relying on ‘science’ instead of their own common sense.
Redb said | August 13th 2009 @ 1:57pm | Report comment
MyGen,
Some companies short change the tests to make them cheaper. I did an employment related psych test 5 years ago, it went for 4.5 hours.
it is a guide, nothing is perfect but having employed a dozen or so people in recent times they are very useful at separating two candidates and are prtety well spot on if analysed correctly.
Redb
Mushi said | August 13th 2009 @ 7:46pm | Report comment
They aren’t spot on.
I remember my Lecturer from many years ago in organisational behaviour (who helped design and administer such tests for recruitment purposes) stressed these are not what any scientist would consider accurate and are only really useful because recruitment is so inaccurate to begin with.
Also the NFL administers a wonderlic test which is more to do with the ability to learn, some particular teams use behavioural tests but these aren’t standardised. The NFL is also a strange example as their commissioner would kill to have David Gallop’s off field incidents.
Agreed rickety knees that mentoring would be a good step though sometimes the “mentors” at clubs are half the problem.
k7n4n5t3w4rt said | August 13th 2009 @ 1:22pm | Report comment
Great post. The mentoring idea is really good.
Rickety Knees said | August 13th 2009 @ 1:41pm | Report comment
Sorry Redb – testing is OK but does nothing to help a young man cope with life’s day-to-day pressures. There are many, many different types of psychometric testing. Some measure your ability to understand the written word, or to reason with numbers. Others measure your ability to solve mechanical problems, or follow instructions accurately, or be able to understand data which is presented in a variety of ways. And then, of course, there are the personality tests, assessing everything from motivation to working preferences. But psychometric tests cannot and do not measure everything.
How many times have you heard about the nice quiet responsible guy that everybody liked, who lived down the street, that came home one day killed his family and then himself. That is the extreme of male behaviour but unfortunately it happens far to often.
IMO it is being able to provide the individual with the tools to deal with life, day to day. Empower and evolve the individual is the solution rather than trying to assess the risk as you cannot simulate life’s pressures and predictive behaviour in a testing environment.
Redb said | August 13th 2009 @ 1:52pm | Report comment
I’m talking about behaviorial testing done in addition to the numeric, abstract and verbal reasoning, as well as specificially targetted emotional intelligence tests. Defined as :
“Emotional Intelligence reasoning tests target a candidates ability to handle emotional components (e.g. self and others emotional disclosure) in roles such as customer service, human resources, sales roles and team work. Emotional intelligence reasoning is different from personality assessments in that it utilizes psychometrically sound forms which recognises the emotional ability of a candidate”
Try this link (googled at random)
http://www.psychpress.com.au/Psychometric/psychometric-testing-guide.asp?what-is
Redb
MyGeneration said | August 13th 2009 @ 1:58pm | Report comment
My question above still applies. How do you think these tests should be used?
Redb said | August 13th 2009 @ 2:01pm | Report comment
Amongst other things as part of an overall assessment of emotional intelligence.
To be very clear. It’s not always about rejecting the person either, it also about being aware that there maybe a tendency to certain behaviors which should be monitored or mentored.
Redb
MyGeneration said | August 13th 2009 @ 2:04pm | Report comment
Well, perhaps there’s a place for it. Wouldn’t want a ‘fail’ to simply mean being given a one-way ticket to the local garbology franchise. That’s not exactly helping anyone.
Wolter B said | August 13th 2009 @ 2:13pm | Report comment
Well done Ricketty Knees to highlight a way forward for these young men
To be mentored not just spoken to would go along way to aiding them to
deal with situations that obviously some of them are not capable of.
oikee said | August 13th 2009 @ 2:33pm | Report comment
Excellent, the reason why i have so much appreciation for this post is because i never really grew up until i was 37, thats when i met my 2nd wife.
At 22 i was a total ratbag and really knew nothing about life skills.
Rickety Knees said | August 13th 2009 @ 3:45pm | Report comment
Thanks Oikee – take a look at http://www.betterman.com.au
onside said | August 13th 2009 @ 3:23pm | Report comment
Years ago all this happened,well some of it anyway,but it never had names.
Boys had mentors at clubs .Even the system of behavioral expectations in
the club environment was a ‘mentor’.There were always lots of women in
clubs,mums,girlfreinds, older female committee members.A young player
had to look them in the eye after a game if he had behaved inappropriately.
Older men,that may have either played with the seconds years ago,or once
were Wallaby triallists were in the bar after the game to encourage and
offer little bits of advice.Rugby and life.
These days in Super rugby there are no clubs.There is no history , no sense
of belonging.Whereas it possible to allocate a young man a mentor ,it is done
in an emotional vaccuum. Reason being the main allegiance of a professional
Super rugby player is to his contract. I totally agree with Rickety Knees , but
mentoring is far more difficult in an environment where the cornerstone of
committment is money,and players wear any companys logo so long as the
price is right.Mum and dad wont be in the clubhouse after the game because
there isnt one.
Rickety Knees said | August 13th 2009 @ 3:42pm | Report comment
Onside – great contribution Bro!
In the S14/NRL/AFL club instance, it needs to be a formalised process where there is a men’s circle conducted on a monthly basis. This should involve coaches as well as senior men who have agreed to be part of the club/franchise Eldership Group. There would be any number of men who would be just love to work in this role – it would be a matter of picking the right ones to do the job.
Whiteline said | August 14th 2009 @ 1:30am | Report comment
Nice discussion guys and all have made good points. A thing to remember is that all of the sportsmen are just a cross section of the community so you’ll get some decent folk, some bogans, those with depression, the odd intellectual genius etc etc. I think we’ve all meet people from all of these categories….no different to any sporting team.
Peter West said | August 14th 2009 @ 2:27pm | Report comment
The NRL needs to take a close look at this