How do I give feedback that improves my players without crushing their confidence?

Quick answer. Make your praise specific and earned, be honest rather than hard when you correct, do it one to one before you ever do it in front of the group, and then watch what the player does with it. Andreu Enrich says the feedback that shapes behaviour comes straight after the action and names exactly what was good. Shea McAleese swaps the word “hard” for “honest”. Emily Calderon talks to a young player on their own before calling them out in front of the team. Siegfried Aikman always checks how the player does with the tip and looks for the positive. And Ric Charlesworth’s condition for criticism that doesn’t crush: the player has to believe you have their best interests at heart.

That’s the short version. Here’s where each part of it comes from. This page is about what the coach says and when. For the player’s side of it, how confidence holds up after a mistake, see How do I build confidence in field hockey players that survives mistakes?

Say what was good, straight after it happens

Andreu Enrich treats feedback as the core of a training session, and he’s specific about what makes it work. It has to be tied to the action, it has to come immediately, and it has to say what was good. His example from his masterclass on feedback and learning environments is a player who scans before receiving: not “good”, but “hey, good pre scanning”, said the moment it happens. Praise half an hour later is better than nothing, he says, but worth far less.

He also guards the value of the word: “you cannot say all the time good to everyone all the time because then the value of good is lost. You have to be selective. You can of course do it often, but not all the time. You cannot say good when the action was not good.” That last sentence is the link to confidence. Praise a player gets for everything tells them nothing, and they know it.

Correction still has a place in his view: “negative reinforcement is also a part of, of shaping behaviors. The thing is that it’s less effective than positive reinforcement.” So the bulk of what he says in a session is catching the right thing and naming it.

Swap “hard” feedback for “honest” feedback

In Coachability, Ernst asked Shea McAleese how to give hard feedback without pushing a player into retreat. His answer was to change the word: “I would change the, the word hard for honest. So I think honest is the, the biggest thing that we can be as a coach”. And: “it might not be the, the nicest thing for them to hear, but it’s the best thing for them to hear.”

He’s blunter about the alternative. Talking about selection, he said: “The worst thing you can ever say to a player is that, oh, you were good enough, but you just weren’t good enough”. Vague reassurance protects the coach for a minute and leaves the player with nothing to work on.

He’s careful about timing too. With news that carries a lot of emotion, like not being picked, give the news, let it settle, and come back to the reasons later: “the cooling emotions down and then having that conversation a few days later is important.” Feedback in the middle of a game is different again, short and direct, and he says it only works on top of a relationship you’ve already built: “you’ve got to have a really strong culture and a really good relationship with the athlete to be able to do that.”

Earn the right to criticise

Ric Charlesworth, in the Pygmalion masterclass, put the condition plainly: “if you are going to give hard criticism to people then you have to have their respect they have to think that you know what you’re talking about and they also have to think that you have their best interests at heart”. And Charlesworth is just as clear that praise alone isn’t the answer: “you can’t just say everything’s wonderful, you’re fantastic, this is terrific, because you have to provide some reality too”.

Enrich builds that respect away from the session, in what he calls lubricant talks: short one-to-ones before or after training, never during it, and often. “If you are the coach, you are in a power position. So for him, being listened by the coach is something already good. It’s a source of recognition.” Those talks are also where a correction lands most easily. He tells the story of telling a player, privately, “We have to work on your skills a little bit because your touch is not clean enough”, and offering extra sessions. The reply was thanks, because nobody had ever told him.

Correct one to one before you correct in front of the group

Emily Calderon, video analyst for Belgium’s national men’s team, worked out how to use video with youth players without scaring them. Her starting point is that young players expect a clip of themselves to mean they’re in trouble: “for kids and youth players, it can come across as very direct of telling them what they’re doing wrong and they’ll be scared.” So for under-14s she starts small: “one on one, you and that player before calling them out in front of a whole group, because that’s still something a bit more difficult.”

Her version of a one-to-one is relaxed: “Just grab your computer, grab a player next to you and on a very chilled level, just have a small conversation on a clip of them. Ask them themselves, did you like your action? What could you have done differently?” When she does show an individual’s mistake to the group, she says why first: “Make it clear already that it is not to bash on them, it is not to make them feel bad, it’s just to give an example.” And she spreads it around: “try not to use the same player every time. So make sure everybody comes across during the week.” Her balance is “positive and to improve clips so it stays fun for everyone”. She doesn’t put a number on it, and nobody else in the archive does either.

She sees taking feedback in front of others as a skill players build in steps: one to one first, then a small line group at under-16, then the full team.

Watch what the player does with the tip

Siegfried Aikman ended a Coach Chat on receiving skills with the part most coaches skip: “when you give a comment to a player, a tip, always check if… how he does, and try to find the positive feedback, because that’s where the player knows, oh, he cares, he looks at me how I do.” The failure Aikman describes is giving the tip and moving straight on to the next player. To the player, that looks like you weren’t interested in how it went.

Aikman’s practical version is to take one player out, explain, send them back in, and watch the next attempt, rather than stopping the whole group for a general talk.

Say less, say it calmly, and check it landed

Jude Menezes, asked by a coach whose team gets scared or angry in matches, said that coaches often confuse players by talking too much from the sideline. “So once you’ve given them the instruction, then it’s the game belongs to the players.” And: “be calm in your messaging because then if you’re calm, the message will be received calmly.” Tin Matkovic adds who gets hurt most by volume: “if you have player profiles that are hard workers and want to please the coach, more information sometimes can lead to overload of information”.

That sits in some tension with Enrich, who wants frequent, immediate praise. The two fit together if the feedback is specific and earned. A stream of general commentary is something else.

Then check it landed. McAleese again: “as a coach, we always go, do you understand? And then they go, yep. That’s a real problem that I think coaches do have.” The drill that follows shows they didn’t. His fix is to ask the player to explain it back to you. He also wants players to push back sometimes: “it is also important that the athlete doesn’t always agree with you because they need to have their feeling and their perspective put on the table.”

Two questions this usually raises

Should I praise more than I criticise?

Probably, but there’s no magic ratio. Andreu Enrich says positive reinforcement is the more effective tool and the one he uses most, as long as it’s specific and earned. Ric Charlesworth warns that praise alone isn’t honest. Emily Calderon asks for a balance of positive and work-on clips. None of the coaches gives a number.

What if a player gets defensive every time I correct them?

Emily Calderon treats taking feedback without getting defensive as something players learn in steps: one to one first, then a small group, then the full team. Shea McAleese would also look at timing, because loaded news lands better once the emotion has cooled and the reasons come a few days later. And he’d ask the player for their view, because a player who never disagrees with you isn’t really talking to you.

The sessions below are where these coaches go into the working detail. Every masterclass opens free so you can see what it covers; the full session sits in the Coach subscription.

Go more in depth here

Andreu Enrich

About Feedback, Anchor Tasks, Managing Arousal and so much more

His full chapter on feedback, plus lubricant talks, anchor tasks and managing arousal in a session.

Watch on demand

Shea McAleese

Coachability

Honest feedback, the layers of feedback from in-game to selection, and the Q&A on juniors and the bench.

Watch on demand

Emily Calderon

Video analysis for youth coaches in field hockey

How she uses video with under-14, under-16 and under-19 players, age by age, including meeting length.

Watch on demand

Read next: Free to read in full, Siegfried Aikman's session on receiving skills, where the follow-up advice above comes from, and the case for telling players you believe in them: Receiving skills, The 4 most powerful words in talent development: "I believe in you".

More coaching questions: What do I say at half-time when we're losing?, My players wait to be told what to do. How do I get them deciding for themselves?, How do I build confidence in field hockey players that survives mistakes?, How do I motivate field hockey players who have checked out?, How do I help a field hockey player let go of a mistake and reset?, How do I keep juniors coming back without letting the standards slide?. All of them are in Field Hockey Coaching Questions.