This article by Bruce E. Brown and Rob Miller of Proactive Coaching, from the Intentional Coaching collection, addresses the power of words for coaches, parents, teachers and leaders. It identifies three things adults should eliminate when working with young people — sarcasm, demeaning messages and motivation using fear — and explains why each one damages trust and performance.
Introduction
The Power of Your Words (for coaches, parents, teachers, leaders). All of us who have chosen to coach young people need to become experts with the use of our words. We need to become experts with those words in a public, emotional setting where score is being kept. That is where we have chosen to work. We constantly need to ask ourselves if our words are serving us or serving others. Words that only serve us eliminate the possibility of trust and negatively impact performance.