Coaching Culture with Ben Herring

Coaching Under Pressure: Owning Your Dark Traits

• Ben Herring

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Pressure doesn’t invent character—it reveals it. When the game tightens and the season bites back, many of us slide into sarcasm, shut people out, or bury ourselves in busywork that feels safe. I unpack those dark traits head-on and share how elite coaches identify them, speak them aloud, and build systems that keep emotion from hijacking the facts.

Drawing on insights from Mick Byrne, John Mitchell, and Steve Hansen, I break down what happens when stress narrows perspective and why the first step is simple awareness without shame. Then we go further: refusing to justify the behavior, creating a cooling-off protocol for heated conversations, and returning to decisions when heads are clear. You’ll hear a relatable sideline-to-swimming-pool analogy that shows how public frustration seeds private resentment—and how small, steady changes in tone and timing rebuild trust.

If you lead teams at any level, you’ll get practical tools you can use today: a quick reflection log to spot triggers, pre-agreed signals with assistants to pause spirals, and a “reset kit” for post-game recovery that protects relationships and improves decisions. We look at how to coach hard without leaving scars, how to make feedback land without resentment, and how to grow capacity the same way you grow muscle—stress, recover, adapt.

Tune in, take what serves your context, and tell me what you’re noticing under pressure. If this resonated, tap follow, share it with a coach who needs it, and drop fan mail with your toughest leadership moment so we can tackle it together. Your voice helps shape future episodes—let’s build better coaches, and better people, one clear choice under pressure at a time.

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SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Reflections, the Midweek Show. I'm Ben Herring, and I've been loving this side of the game for bloody ages. We're here today to dive that little bit deeper on the coaching and leadership aspects that are covered by our longer form interviews on the Coaching Culture podcast. If you have things that you want answers to, make sure you drop me a note in the fan mail button on the podcast. Press it, write what you want. And if you are loving the show, make sure you also find the support the show button. It's when you scroll down on the show notes, you'll see it. It says support the show. Press it to find out how you can support the show. Those are two ways we as a community can grow this awesome community of coaches to become better people that ultimately become better coaches. Appreciation in advance. Now, let's get a little bit deeper on this week's episode of Reflections. Welcome team. Welcome to Reflections Midweek Chat. Now, today's chat is about dark traits. We we talked about it from Mick Burns' episode that dropped on Sunday. And I got this lovely text via the fan mail section on the podcast from Coatesville, Pennsylvania, which I loved. And I love when you get these little bits of insight from the from the fans and community that listen to this podcast. Here's what it said from Coatesville, Pennsylvania. Love the comments of awareness of dark traits, referring to Mick Burns' comments. Was me last weekend, last weekend, last match of a tough season. We all have them, but such a gem of advice to be aware of. Thank you very much. Unfortunately, it doesn't say the name, but thank you very much, Coatesville, Pennsylvania, for that little bit of referencing how much they enjoyed that content from the show. Now, I want to dive into this bit from dark traits because that's not the only comment I've had this week around that reference that Mick Byrne had on the podcast about owning his dark traits. And I think it's lovely to actually dive into this a little bit because we all have them as coaches. It's part of the coaching psyche, is that you actually go through a real washing machine effect of emotions and the stresses and strains that come of it are very real. And you don't always realize that it's there in coaching until you're in it at whatever level. You kind of, until you're in the mix, until you're inside that washing machine, you kind of think coaching is this lovely thing which is stress-free and good fun, which it is. But where the real joy comes from coaching is that it's not all that. There is dark times you have. Ultimately, you are leading a group of people. And people in any facet always have their challenges. And you, as the leader of those people, wear it, cop it, you know, take it all on sometimes. And then you have to work through how you disperse that yourself and come out the other side better for it. And that is actually the real joy of coaching is that you're going through a growth experience as much as the players. You are learning how to take and deal and you know, extradite the learning of the stresses of the role. And it it's a it's a wonderful thing to know that it's not all rosy. There is those hard times, but like any stresses and strains, you come out better for it. We all know in the gym, if you tear your muscles a little bit by doing excellent weights, you're gonna grow back stronger. Likewise, if you go through these stresses and strains from a coaching point of view, all the stuff that comes at you which you're never aware even existed, if you can get through it, you're gonna come out better for it, providing you're aware of it and you make the appropriate adjustments in yourself. So I want to dive into a little bit what Mick said on the podcast. And his first phrase was this: don't hide from your dark traits. Don't hide from them. I think that's that's probably uh a real default pattern we have as coaches because we are up there being seen to be the one that knows it all, that has all the information, that is the one above the stresses of strands. We're not the ones that appear to be learning, where that's not actually the case. The actual reality is we definitely don't know it all. Like on this podcast, I talk to the world's best, and they're the first ones to admit they actually don't know it all. Here's a couple of examples of which a lot of coaches talked about are are common dark traits. Mick Byrne talked about for him, it's sarcasm. When the pressure comes on, his dark trait is sarcasm. His tone turns to that. That's a that's a really marvelous reflection. Another one he said was he shuts people out under pressure. One of his dark traits is he shuts people out. He goes, No, no, no, no, I'm not dealing with it. No. And just goes that way. A couple other podcasts we had, John Mitchell said something like this: getting stuck in the weeds, he said, under pressure, he gets stuck in the weeds, goes to those sort of management tasks, which aren't coaching, gets stuck in those when the pressure comes on, gets absorbed in that side of things. Steve Hansen talks about his competitiveness. An alter ego comes out where he just gets so competitive he has to win everything. Arguments, conversations, and things like that. Now, all these coaches, Mick Byrne, John Mitchell, Steve Hansen, are right up there with the world's very best, and they're admitting to having these dark traits. And that's the first step to get better, to get through the other side of these stresses and strains is to actually own them. Don't hide from them. Own them, be aware of them, be able to be able to speak about them. That I do this under pressure. As soon as you do that, you're actually you're you're starting the process of actually growing to get better. If you just hide away, put them under the rug where they never get seen, they're not going to grow. Bring them out. And then people around you are able to actually lend a bit of support and help and advice. And sometimes that can be just the thing you need, particularly for partners and friends outside of the game. Someone you can, that sort of friend you can have, that support group, that shoulder you can lean on, just event some of these things that are happening. It's massively therapeutic. And if you're not doing it already, find that person, even if it's your local coffee shop person or someone you enjoy having a coffee or a beer with. It's a wonderful thing to start. The second element, which Mick talked about, which I think is equally, in fact, way more important, is not to justify your dark traits. He says that's very easy to do that as a coach. So first of all, awareness, and then don't justify. What he was talking about was when you're justifying, you're you're fixing in your stance. You're saying, I am correct and justified and right, and you're using emotion to do it and you get emotional. And when you get emotional, it takes away from the facts of the situation. Emotion hides the facts and it distorts conversations and they sort of they soon quickly escalate into things which they were never intended to be. So his advice is to take out as much conversations. If if you're getting in a conversation or around a dark trait that's coming out, whether you're getting sarcastic like him, as soon as you're aware of it and you can feel that it's happening, you park those conversations you might be having with people and you say, let's let's resume this. I'm not in a good space here. Let's resume this tomorrow. Give it overnight, sleep on it. Because emotion takes away the facts. You reduce their emotion overnight, come back and you restore and you just talk about the facts. I think that's a great thing to be. The last little bit which Mick alluded to was be gentle on yourself around this. Dark traits are there for a reason because what you're going through is uncomfortable and they're stirred up in you. You might not have felt these feelings before. So they're the first time that you're going through it. And like a lot of things in life, sometimes you just have to be aware of what's happening and just work to get through it. My wife told me this lovely once like a hangover. Like, you know what's happening. You know why you're feeling average. You know, if you just get through today, tomorrow will be better. And you do those little steps. If I drink lots of water, if I have some good things to eat, if I go to bed early, I'll wake up better. And that's just awareness of what it is. Not hiding from us, not saying, not pretending you don't know what's going on. You go, I've done this, now I feel like this. But I know if I can make little adjustments in my nutrition and whatnot in my sleep, tomorrow will be better. And that's so true. And even to a bigger metaphor is things like puberty. You know, as an adult, when children are going through puberty, that they will get through it and they will be better out the other side. But try as you like, it's very hard to tell a teenager that that's what they're going through. And it's sort of similar for coaching, when you're under those pressures, you don't always know that it's just a process you've got to get through. You've got to just step by step by step keep going, keep going through it and not getting bogged down and overwhelmed and think it's all this other stuff and get emotional about it. The ability you have is to go, this is just a thing I need to get through. This stress will not be for here forever. This is a short-term thing. I just need to get through it as best I can. And when I do get through it, I want to be able to look back and go, I've acted in a way which I feel good about. There's no regret, there's no resentment in the way I acted. And if there is a little bit, be gentle because it's a process. We don't get too wound up with our teenage children for making mistakes in their puberty years because we know what it's like. I'd like to give a little example that a metaphor which I it happened to me a little while ago. And I think it's very good to just sort of explain what's happening to a lot of coaches around these dark traits. And it's to do with something which is not even rugby or particularly a sport at all. It's learning to swim program at the local school that I take my young seven-year-old boy to. And here's what it looked like in terms of another father came in. I was sitting down watching my boy swim in the pool. Another father came up, and his boy is losing his mind, crying like crazy about not wanting to go swimming. And dad makes him, he pretty much forces him in the water and he sits down next to me and he is stressed out because his kid is causing a scene, crying. The kid is still crying in the water as the instructor's trying to uh calm him down. And the father's sitting beside me saying, just put him underwater, get him going, he needs to harden up, keep him going. And he was saying all sorts of F-bombs under his breath. Ah, for F's sakes, gosh, come on. And I could tell this father was under pressure. And I like to think that it was because of the social anxiety he had that his kid wasn't behaving in a manner which he enjoyed publicly. And his stresses now became that he was acting in a way, his dark traits were coming out that he was getting super angry on these on the side of the pool. And as he sat there, his wife had to calm him down and say, Honey, honey, please stop. And he's like, Yeah, but Lee's just gotta get going. It's there's nothing wrong with the water. And he kept justifying his position, the stance he'd taken. And he did this the whole time. Just sitting there shaking his head, hands between his eyes, just not like not enjoying the scene. The whole time, the the young boy in the water is getting no better. He's getting dunked under the water, he's being forced to swim, and he's hating life in the pool. Now, this takes me sort of to analogy where I come back to coaches on a sideline on any given weekend. If you go around fields, you will see in most sports, particularly team sports that are on grass, a coach that roams up and down the sideline with this similar type of mindset in mind, where they're just like a grizzly bear up and down the sideline. And when a referee blows a whistle the wrong way, it's oh, come on, ref, what that's bloody offside, all that carry on. And then when a player on their team drops the ball, it's like, oh, come on, Tommy, get your hands up. And it's this kind of tone. And it's exactly the same sentiment is that farther on the side of the pull as to a lot of coaches on the sideline on a weekend, the dark traits come out and they go into autopilot around so emotional, so emotional about the game. And often I've had chats to co coaches about why they're doing it, and the first response is justification. Look, I just care, right? Like I'm just passionate. You know, the rest call were rubbish. I just had to get into them, let them know, like our skills are better than that. So I just want to give them a blast. Now that's all very well, but there's no getting better from that. And the thing that I would like to point out is you think it's going unnoticed. We are, as coaches, leaders in these fields. And we think sometimes that people can't see the way we act, and that the way we're acting is unimportant. It's actually what's on the field, what's important. How you're acting does stick with people. And the example is this when that little kid came out of the pool, he was still upset and he looked at his father, and his father just grabbed him by the hand and walked out like in this dismissive nature. And I saw the little look in the boy's eye, the the the gutting feeling that his dad didn't give him any anything that he was looking for. And you wonder, is that resentment gonna stick? And it may well do, it may not, but you kind of get the feeling it might, right? And then you think about on the coaching context, if you're constantly into a raffle, you're constantly like critiquing fellas in that harsh way that drop the ball, they don't mean to drop it. And they look to side and they hear the coach getting into them. Come on, hands up. Does it build that little bit of resentment? Do those dark traits, are they so etched in emotion that they take away from the facts? The facts is they didn't mean to drop the ball. Will the resentment be there in small doses? And do those small doses build up to something bigger? Coaching, good coaching, as Eddie Jones says, can be defined by resentment, how much you're having. If you can say something and there's resentment, you're not coaching as good as you could. If you can say something and there's no resentment from the player, you've done something well. But I would suggest in most occasions, if you're that coach on the sideline, roaming up and down, having digs at your players, having cracks at the referee, then there's gonna be resentment somewhere along the line. People, these shows are the midweek shows, which are little reflection. So if you have things that have cropped up on our interviews on the Sunday that come out, love you writing in with your fan mail. It's absolutely awesome. I also, if if you do love it, there's also the support the show button. And if you feel like supporting the show, it goes a long way. There's a couple of you there that are regular supporters of the show, and I absolutely love it. See that pop up on my little fan mail thing that I've got supporters supporting the show. Gosh, it makes me smile. So if you do like the show, if you do like both these midweek and the interviews, support the show and drop me a bell on the fan mail because I will begin to start answering these as best I can. Coachville, Pennsylvania, thank you for the spark midweek to get me thinking about you and appreciate your comments around how dark traits have affected you.