Coaches don’t have to be inspirational or give rah-rah speeches. Think of Bill Belichick, Nick Saban, or Greg Poppovich. None of them are like that. They focus on the task at hand. They focus on the drills that need to be performed. There are no “you can do it!” pep rally speeches from them. They tell it like it is and their goal is to get their team better at their jobs.
A cheerleader makes you feel good, but a coach makes you better. That doesn’t mean that you can’t be nice or that you can’t care for your co-workers/teammates/mentees. It just means that you are not doing them any justice by only telling them what they want to hear. Tough love is just love. You need to love them enough to let them make mistakes, but not such catastrophic mistakes that they’re not going to bounce back from them. You need to know when to step in and to not let them hurt themselves. That’s what being a great coach is all about.
