Malcolm Frame, a sports psychologist at a leading Football League Championship club in England, has first-hand experience with the benefits of high Emotional Intelligence in competitive environments. He recently found time to sit down with Paul Vella from the MHS UK office to discuss how he first discovered the applications of EI in professional sport and how he uses them in his day to day work with teams. “I first turned to Emotional Intelligence for sports application after beginning to look at what made someone great. It wasn’t always about technical skill, and was often more about motivation/desire and other factors.”
As a sports psychologist, Malcolm is responsible for the brains behind each player’s brawn. “The main question I would get asked from coaches was ‘how can you make this player mentally tough?’ In looking at the research I found that mental toughness was directly related to EI.”
Within the framework of EI, the research that Malcolm consulted identified two key areas: self-belief and emotional resiliency. These areas were found to be key in things like dealing with adversity, wrong decisions and going behind.
In his own experience, Malcolm has found that it is not only the player’s Emotional Intelligence that is of concern but also that of the coach. “From my observations, coaches tend to be strong at looking at technical and tactical areas but are uncomfortable around the emotional area,” he noted. “One coach didn’t know what to do with an under performing player but hadn’t asked him what was going on for him. So part of the problem was that they were trying to tell the player what should happen rather than engage the player in the process. The player hadn’t been engaged at an emotional level so it was difficult for that player to move forward.”
Malcolm has found EI assessment useful for further refining his psychological and emotional work with the players. “Emotions are a key driver in all aspects of player performance and by undertaking their emotional profile you can free up some aspects that are blocking their potential. I feel that for the players the intrapersonal area is key, for the coaches, interpersonal.”
Malcolm feels that Emotional Intelligence can be a big differentiator between those young players coming into the academy and subsequently progressing further and those dropping out. Malcolm quotes Bill Beswick, a sports psychologist with the England football team, stating “ability has got you this far, character will get you the rest of the way.” Malcolm feels that EI is a huge part of that character Bill refers to. He also believes that developing players’ Emotional Intelligence could potentially make the difference between success and failure where the margins are tight, for example in cup finals or penalty shootouts. “I’m in no doubt that such things as reacting under pressure and keeping momentum are linked to Emotional Intelligence and by increasing a players’ Emotional Intelligence the difference between success and failure can be further bridged.”
