University of Hull

I fulfil a number of leadership roles within the department and sit on several faculty and university panels. I am currently the director of research and was deputy REF lead for the 2028 REF submission.

Professor of Psychology

Leeds Beckett University

Senior Research Fellow

In addition to undertaking PhD, I conducted seminars, lectures, and supervised undergraduate dissertations.

Graduate Teaching Assistant

I enjoy posting on LinkedIn about the practical application of psychology. If you enjoy reading my posts, please send a connection request. 


I am a professor at the university of Hull, who is engaged in research, leadership, and teaching roles. The main focus of my research relates to the psycho-social factors that predict doping among adolescent athletes, along with coping and emotions among athletes. My research is supported by more than £1.1 million as a principal investigator, within the last five years, and £1.5 million including all projects.  These projects have been funded by the:

International Olympic Committee - www.iplayclean.co.uk

The European Commission - www.coachadvice.org and www.win-dop.org

The World Anti-Doping Agency

Medical Research Council

National Institute for Health Research

I have published more than 85 journal articles, written four books, and edited a book. My book, Psychology for Coaches: Theory and Practice has also been translated into Arabic and Hungarian. The third edition of this book was published in October 2021.

In addition to pursuing his own research interests, I am director of research with the Department of Sport, Health, and Exercise Science, and am leader of the Sport Psychology and Coaching group. This role involves me mentoring/coaching colleagues, developing a research strategy and impact case studies.

Outside of work, I regularly compete in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and coach this sport too. I competed at the 2021 British Open, held at Loughborough University, and won the silver medal. Being an active competitor allows me to test and refine some of psychological principles that I research.

Michael Phelps: "I am somebody that suffers with depression and anxiety. It's sometimes daily. The one thing that has helped me is to talk about my struggles.

When athletes such as Michael Phelps talk openly and honestly about their mental health, not only does it raise the awareness of mental health symptoms, it can also help reduce the stigma around speaking to a doctor and initiating treatment (World Health Organisation). 

In this video, refers to the beneficial influence that talking has on his depressive and anxiety symptoms. This supports recent data from the House of Commons revealed that in 2022/23:

➡ 1.22 million people from England started a course of talking therapy (e.g., cognitive behavioural therapy, counselling, and self-help support).

➡ 672,000 people completed a course.

➡ 66.5% who were referred for talking therapy were women, and women outnumbered men in every region of England. This is somewhat worrying, and indicates that men might not be utilising help when they need it.

➡ 49.9% of those who received talking therapy no longer met the threshold for a clinical mental health diagnosis, and were classified as being in recovery.

Phelps also talks about his emotions and understanding the potential antecedents of why he's feeling the way he is. Talking therapies are excellent for this.

I think this a great video to encourage others to seek help if they are struggling with mental health symptoms.

Professor Adam Nicholls

Charles de Klerk

Boris Becker: "I used to go home all the time, tell my wife 'it's like he reads my mind', but little did I know, you were just reading my tongue"

In this video, Andre Agassi talks about how he could read the direction of Boris Becker's serves from the position of his tongue, just as he was about to hit the serve.

According to researchers, being able to anticipate what an opponent is going to do next, such as Andre Agassi could do, is vital in sports where players have limited time to react, such a returning a tennis serve, evading a punch in boxing, or attempting to save a penalty kick (Williams & Jackson, 2019).

What makes some people better at anticipating than others?

Researchers have found that skilled anticipators are:

1️⃣more sensitive at reading bodily movements close to the body part used for skill (i.e., arm and racquet in tennis; and hand in cricket spin bowling; Huys et al., 2009; Muller et al., 2006).

2️⃣able to differentiate between deception and genuine movements more effectively than less skilled anticipators (Williams & Jackson, 2009).

3️⃣able to identify patterns in sequences of play, so the can identify what will happen at the end of an action (North & Williams, 2019).

4️⃣able to prioritise the importance of different bodily movements more effectively (Alain &Proteau, 1980).

5️⃣more effective at scanning, and fixating on different areas in comparison to less effective performers (Roca et al., 2013).

Can we improve anticipation?

The evidence suggests that mental imagery, (Smeeton et al., 2013), encouraging athletes to focus on a vital body part, such as the shoulder of opponents for handball goalkeepers (Schorer & Baker, 2009), and temporary occlusion of video footage in sport (i.e., editing a film into specific time phases such as just before a person will strike a ball and allowing athletes to practice their anticipation skills; Muller et al., 2017) many enhance anticipation.

Penalties: Athlete Leadership from Christiano Ronaldo

Formal and informal athletes leaders influence a variety of desirable psychological constructs such as the confidence of other players (Fransen et al., 2014, 2016), motivation (Mertens et al., 2018), and burnout (Fransen et al., 2020). Further, effective athlete leadership also positively enhances team performance (Fransen et al., 2018; Mertens et al., 2018).

In this video, Ronaldo demonstrates motivational leadership, as he encourages his teammate. In particular, there are two things that Ronaldo does well:

1️⃣ Building Confidence and Generating a Challenge Mindset
He tries to build his Moutinho's confidence by repeatedly reinforcing his penalty taking abilities. This encouragement will also help generate a challenge state, because Ronaldo is telling Moutinho that he has the ability to meet the demands of the situation. 

2️⃣ Eliminates Concerns about the Outcome
Ronaldo also attempts to reduce fear of defeat, and thus reducing pressure on Moutinho prior to him taking the penalty kick. 

"We are Taking them Boys to the Hurt Arena"

A very emotive speech by The British & Irish Lions coach, Andy Farrell, prior to the 3rd test against Rugby Australia in 2013. There are some great examples of team speeches, but what impact do these have on performance and what are athletes' preferences?

Vargas and Short (2011) explored the impact of coach speeches with a sample of 151 elite soccer players. Of these 151 soccer players, 95 (65.5%) believed that a coach’s pre-game speech had an impact on performance, compared to 48 (33.1%) who reported no, and 2 (1.4%) soccer players who reported both yes and no! 

Content of Speeches

Vargas-Tonsing and Guan (2007) explored how the different content in a pre-game speech may influence its overall effectiveness. The content of the speeches was classified as: (1) instructional and (2) emotional.

(1) Instructional Content

Content of the pre-game speeches that were classified as instructional referred to when the coach spoke about tactics, strategies, and technique. That is, the coach was providing information on how performance could be improved.

(2) Emotional Content

The emotional content of a pre-game speech referred to when the coach was trying to evoke an emotional response, such as reducing anxiety levels by calming players down or increasing arousal and motivation levels, which is what Farrell did in his talk.

These researchers found that the situation influenced whether the players wanted more instructional or emotional content in their pre-game speech. For example, players reported wanting more informational content when:

✅ Competing against a team or an opponent that had not been played before
✅They had narrowly lost their last match
✅They were about to play an important match

However, players wanted more emotional content in their coach’s pre-game speech when:

✅ They were about to play an important match
✅ Competing against a higher ranked team or opponent
✅ Considered the underdog

As such, when athletes or teams are playing important matches, it appears that both instructional and emotional information, but in certain situations they will require more informational content, and others more emotional content. 

Rio Ferdinand spoke about how the Manchester United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, reduced anxiety among the players (source: Tribal Football.com):

“I’ll never forget the manager’s speech in Moscow. Before the game he just plunked his chair in the middle of the dressing room and just started a random conversation totally unrelated to football. But it just settled everybody’s nerves and before we knew it his talk switched to words of pure inspiration, reminding all the players that whatever you do in life is to achieve your goals. And, of course, it worked. We won the game.”

Coaches should also consider the length of speeches, as athletes tend to negatively perceive speeches that are too long (Breakley et al., 2009), empower athletes, and enhance belief (Smith et al., 2018). 

“As a coach if all I do is teach you how to play basketball, I’m wasting a lot of time"

The University of Alabama head baskbetball coach, Nate Oats, talks about his role as coach in the development of his players:

"Our first priority is building great men. Great men turn into great team mates, turns into a great team, and also, now you're winning a lot of games. If you put your priority where it's supposed to be at, I think the rest of the stuff takes care of itself" 

As alluded to by Coach Oats, sport can be used to teach people different life lessons. 

Bukayo Saka: "I've learned my lesson from the spot"

Interesting to hear Arsenal F.C and England Football player, Bukayo Saka, talk about his preparation and routine for taking penalties after previously missing penalties for England and Arsenal in big matches. 

A pre-performance routine, according to Moran (1996), is a sequence of task-relevant thoughts and behaviours that an athlete engages in before performing in a sports skill. A pre-performance routine can help reduce the likelihood of choking, because it helps focus an athlete’s attention on task-related cues as opposed to task-irrelevant cues (Mesagno and Mullane-Grant, 2010). 

Researchers  have found that a pre-performance routine can improve performance, within high pressure situations, by as much as 29% compared to when athletes were not provided with a pre-performance routine (Mesagno et al., 2008). The pre-performance routine by Mesagno et al. involved deep breathing, using task-relevant cue words, in addition to the participants spending a consistent amount of time on each pre-performance routine. 
Mesagno and Mullane-Grant (2010) extended the findings of Mesagno et al. (2008) and found that that a pre-performance routine that included all the elements (e.g. timing consistency training, deep breathing, and cue words) enabled athletes to perform the most successfully under pressurised situations. 

Pre-Performance Routines (PPRs)

Cue words
PPRs should include task-relevant cue words, which are important for the specific skill. For example, a rugby union goal kicker may chose the words ‘coil’ and ‘follow through.’ Once the athlete has identified two or three keywords the athlete can say these key words prior to performing, as a part of a pre-performance routine.

Deep breathing
An athlete can be taught to take two deep breaths prior to performing, whereby the athlete is instructed to inhale deeply to a count of 5 through his or her nose and exhale through the mouth to a count of 9 or 10.

Timing.
The coach could time the athlete and let him or her know how consistently the pre-performance routine has been performed to maximise consistency.

A pre-performance routine should be individualised (Mesagno and Mullane-Grant, 2010). That is, the keywords should be chosen by the athlete. Some athletes might prefer to say their key words whilst they are taking their deep breaths, others might want to say their keywords before taking the breaths, whereas other athletes might want to say their keywords after taking their breaths. There is no wrong or right approach, but it is important that once the athletes have tried different pre-performance routines that they establish their own routine, which they consistently perform. This is because athletes perform better when they stick to their established pre-performance routine compared to when they deviate away from it (Lonsdale and Tam, 2008). 

Rory McllRoy on Body Language: "What you Put Out into the World, is What you Get Back" 

Major winner, Rory McllRoy, talks about how worked on his body language, such as keeping his eye line above the crowd, so that his his chest would be up, which show positivity. 

Research on body language, also known as non-verbal impressions revealed that body language can impact:

✅ Sporting performance (Kraus, Huang, & Keltner, 2010; Moesch et al., 2016)
✅ Collective efficacy in team sports (Ronglan, 2007)
✅ Team outcome confidence (Fransen et al., 2015)
✅ Emotions and behaviours of others (for a review, see Matsumoto et al., 2013).
✅ An athlete's perception of his or her coach (Manley et al., 2008).

Coaches working with a Sport Psychologist

"There's a macho attitude, where we can't show our vulnerability, and open up to talk about our fears"

University of Connecticut head coach, Dan Hurley, talks about working with a Sport Psychologist. I think some coaches and leaders are unaware of the benefits of working with a sport psychologist and how it can help them manage their own stress. 

Indeed, Thiery Henry spoke about how hard it is to be a coach:

"𝙔𝙤𝙪 𝙣𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙬𝙤𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧 𝙝𝙤𝙬 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙖𝙘𝙝 𝙞𝙨 𝙙𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙜. 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙪𝙧𝙚 𝙤𝙣 𝙖 𝙘𝙤𝙖𝙘𝙝 𝙞𝙨 𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙧𝙞𝙗𝙡𝙚. 𝙁𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙪𝙥𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙨, 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙖𝙜𝙚𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩, 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙮𝙚𝙧𝙨...𝙄 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙣𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙙 𝙖 𝙘𝙤𝙖𝙘𝙝'𝙨 𝙤𝙛𝙛𝙞𝙘𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙖𝙨𝙠 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢 𝙝𝙤𝙬 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮'𝙧𝙚 𝙙𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙜. 𝙄𝙩'𝙨 𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙗𝙚 𝙖 𝙘𝙤𝙖𝙘𝙝. 𝙔𝙤𝙪'𝙧𝙚 𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮 𝙢𝙪𝙘𝙝 𝙖𝙡𝙤𝙣𝙚" 

For coaches out there, who are struggling, it could be helpful to seek help and speak to someone.  

Conceptual Leadership Skills in the South African Rugby Team

I have previously written about the human leadership skills of the South African rugby coaches and captain at the Rugby World Cup France 2023, displayed by Rasie Erasmus: 

https://lnkd.in/e2XjzSjQ

Jacques Nienaber:

https://lnkd.in/eKFhM93H

and Siya Kolisi:

https://lnkd.in/eaAuwrP4

LEADERSHIP SKILLS

Northouse (2016) defined leadership skills as the ability to use one’s knowledge and competencies to accomplish a set of goals or objectives” ( p.44). Further, Northouse (2016) suggested that effective leaders require technical (i.e., specialised knowledge and skills), human (i.e., people skills and ability to create and environment of trust), and conceptual skills (i.e., vision and strategic creation).

This video highlights the conceptual leadership skills of the South African leadership team, in that they developed a new strategy by calling for a scrum, when teams would not normally do this, and were able to articulate their vision and principles well to the players. Most importantly, from a leadership perspective, is that the players bought into this strategy. 

"I'm not a basketball coach, just a person that shows up to work everyday to help people"

Fascinating insight from head coach of the Boston Celtics, Joe Mazzulla, on the importance of caring for people in his role as head coach and how his identity is not defined by his job title.

By caring for the staff and players at the Boston Celtics, Mazzulla is fulling a key basic psychological need - the need to be cared for, which is also known as relatedness. 

𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝑹𝒆𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒅𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒔?
The need for relatedness represents an athlete’s need to feel cared for by significant others such as a coach or team mates (Duda, 2013).

When a coach or leader fulfils the basic psychological needs of players and other coaching staff members, this will maximise psychological well-being, self-motivation, and social development (Ryan & Deci, 2000).

𝑻𝒆𝒄𝒉𝒏𝒊𝒒𝒖𝒆𝒔 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝑪𝒐𝒂𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒔 𝒕𝒐 𝑬𝒏𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑷𝒆𝒓𝒄𝒆𝒑𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝑹𝒆𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒅𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒔

✅ 𝗗𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵-𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗹𝗲𝘁𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 
The coach-athlete relationship is key to an athlete’s psychological needs being met (Amorose, 2007; Meageau and Vallerand, 2003), so coaches could work on developing their relationship with players and managing any conflict when or if it arises. 

✅ 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗲𝗿𝘀 
Coaches who work in team sports could devise activities that foster camaraderie among players to ensure that all players feel valued. This could also be achieved by not encouraging competition among team mates, or placing very little emphasis on the results of such competitions. 

Interestingly, this post shows Coach Mazzulla interviewing former Celtics player Kevin Garnett about what makes a good coach, and promoting positive relationships was a key factor:

https://lnkd.in/ejSt_irG

✅ 𝗟𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗹𝗲𝗱𝗴𝗲 
Coaches should listen to what their athletes say and acknowledge the feelings of athletes, rather than disregard such feelings (Amorose, 2007). This will help create trust between athletes and coaches, which is important in helping people feel cared for (Tessier et al., 2010).

✅ 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 
 Amorose (2007) suggested that feedback from a coach could emphasise what the athlete could do to improve his or her performance, progress in his or her sport, or master particular challenges. Indeed, feedback should be non-controlling (Berntsen and Kristiansen, 2019), and can be factual, but not judgemental that focuses on specific problems that could be corrected (Ryan and Deci, 2017). Further, Berntsen and Kristiansen (2019) also suggested that feedback could relate to aspects of athlete’s behaviour that is under his or her control, so that the athlete can work on specific behaviours (e.g., learning a new skill or technique). 

Virat Kohli: "I was visualising every day" 

Virat Kohli, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) cricketer, and arguably one of the greatest batsmen of all time speaks about some the doubts he experienced:

"I've hit rock bottom now. No one believes in me. Everyone thinks I should not be playing test cricket. 

He also speaks about the how visualised everyday:

"From the time I got back home, till the Australia tour, I was visualising every day when I working out in the gym. That I'm hitting Mitchell Johnson, I'm hitting these guys all over the park. And those things came to life, eventually, because I convinced myself, to an extent, when I went there I was absolutely fearless." 

It is not surprising that visualisation had a positive impact on Virat Kohli's performance, because recent meta-analyses conducted by Simonsmeier et al. (2020) and Toth et al. (2020) found that mental imagery can significantly enhance sporting performance. It should be noted, however, that there are number of factors that influence the extent to which imagery will be beneficial, such as the imagery ability of an athlete (Williams and Cumming, 2011) or their level expertise (Simonsmeier et al., 2018).

When a Sporting Organisation Gets it Right...

Great to see how Major League Baseball (MLB) team, the LA Dodgers, are supporting their former player, Andrew Toles, who last played for them in 2018, but has received a contract renewal every year, so he can receive treatment for bipolar and schizophrenia. 

Bipolar and psychotic disorders are characterised by severe changes in a person's mood that impairs them from functioning normally. The mood changes can be depressive, hypomanic, or a mixture of both (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).

The prevalence of bipolar and psychotic disorders among elite athletes is unknown (Reardon et al., 2019), but the peak age at which these occur, coincides with when athlete reaches his or her peak age in sporting performance (Hirschfeld et al., 2013). 

Matt Rhule on Bill Belichick: "He Can Make the Complex so Simple, that it Humbles you and Embarrasses You"

University of Nebraska-Lincoln head coach, Matt Rhule, talks about his meeting with Bill Belichick in which they talked about football. I have posted previously about Tom Brady's relationship with Belichick and his leadership style:

https://lnkd.in/eW-P424M

This video highlights another very important leadership skill - Communication. I think there are a couple of important leadership lessons to unpick from this video:

1) Breaking Down Complexities
Coach Rhule spoke about Belichick's ability to make the complex simple through his communication.  


2) Enhance Understanding by the Speed of Your Communication

"The only reason why we did not get through more information is because he's having to slow down to make sure you're understanding what he's saying"

"𝐈 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐫𝐮𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐭, 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 3️⃣𝐬, 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐚 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞" 


Former National Basketball Association (NBA) player and Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer, Ray Allen, speaks about the importance of training closely resembling match situations, so players are fully prepared for matches - both physically and psychologically. 

Although this may seem obvious, there appears to a be a discrepancy between what coaches actually do and research regarding skill acquisition, motor learning, and expert performance among adolescent athletes (Ford et al., 2010). 

✅ 𝙋𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙚 𝙎𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙍𝙚𝙛𝙡𝙚𝙘𝙩 𝘾𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙚𝙩𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣

Indeed, it has been argued that practice should reflect competition for athletes to make improvements from their training (Singer & Janelle, 1999). For example, elite wrestlers reported that mat work was the most important part of their training, whereas gymnasts have adapted their training to spend more time engaged in activities that were similar to competition (Law et al., 2007). However, the results by Ford et al. indicate that soccer players spend 65% of time in training activities that are not closely related actual competition, whereas only 35% of practice time involved activities that were similar to playing soccer. 

 Others have even advocated that only activities relevant to competition should be practiced (Williams & Hodges, 2005). Indeed, sport-specific practice was associated with adolescent athletes being more likely to be selected for their national team (Forsman et al., 2016). 

🧠 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙋𝙨𝙮𝙘𝙝𝙤𝙡𝙤𝙜𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙄𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙚𝙘𝙞𝙛𝙞𝙘 𝙏𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜

 One of the reasons why sport-specific practice may have enhanced psychological skills is because such practice, in which athletes are required to perform under pressure, may foster the development of new coping skills via athletes learning through experience to cope (see Tamminen et al., 2012) and/or facilitate the development of mental toughness (see Bell et al., 2013). In addition to competition relevant activities developing perceptual, cognitive, motor skills, technical skills, tactical understanding, and psychological skills, they may also enhance intrinsic motivation. This is because athletes are more motivated when they perceive tasks to be relevant (Nicholls, 1989).

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