The Value Of Emotional High & Lows In An Official’s Journey

“Life is full of highs and lows. We need them both to grow to our fullest potential.” – Dawn Gluskin

Traditionally, referees are taught that the lows of officiating are something that should be minimised. The reality is that these tough times are part and parcel of the referee’s journey and are critical to their overall development.

At first, it might be tricky to see why going through the lows of officiating is a good thing, but I’m here to clear up the misconceptions. Here is an overview of why referees need to experience emotions at both ends of the spectrum, and how you can support your officials in their times of strife as a coach or referee manager.

Why Do Referees Need Emotional Highs In Their Officiating Careers?

Lots of the benefits of highs in refereeing are pretty intuitive, when officials do well, it makes them feel good. But these benefits go even deeper than simply lifting a referee’s spirits:

Keeping the referee motivated

When things go right, it fills an official with a surge of positive emotions, making them want to keep striving for greater achievements.

When these successes evoke these feelings, it makes referees fall in love with officiating all over again. This keeps them intrinsically motivated, refereeing because they enjoy it. Intrinsic motivation is associated with better performance and higher retention levels, so experiencing the highs of officiating is undoubtedly something to encourage.

Referees also tend to feel on a high after earning promotions and appointments to cup finals. This keeps them more extrinsically motivated, where they want to succeed to get a tangible reward.

The only danger here is that officials can become too ego-orientated, meaning that they focus too much on the outcome and less on the process they took to get there. It’s important to celebrate the successes, but also to provide the same reaction to the little wins during training, such as when they beat their personal bests. This will lift the mood of a referee and keep them constantly aiming for improvement.

Increasing self-confidence

When officials succeed, it increases their confidence because they have proven that they are capable of achieving great things.

Research has shown that with high self confidence comes greater performance, as it leads to better decision making. Also, a more confident referee is usually a happier official because they don’t feel insecure or doubtful about their abilities. In this way, riding the highs of refereeing is extremely beneficial for not only an official’s performance, but their mental health.

Increasing self-esteem

Self-esteem is different to self confidence in that it refers to how a referee feels about themselves. Good performances provide them with a huge self-esteem boost, and in a similar way to self-confidence, this increases performance.

Feeling good about oneself is also crucial to ensure good mental health, which is yet another reason why experiencing the highs of officiating is beneficial for referees. Performing at a high level can come with all sorts of pressures, so it’s important that officials can use these positive moments to remain happy and keep them in love with refereeing.

Why Do Referees Need Emotional Lows In Their Officiating Careers?

Although most officials try their best to minimise the negatives within refereeing, many who have reached an elite level have benefitted from significant challenges throughout their journey. Here’s how:

Building resilience

A recent overview by leading resilience researchers has suggested that in order to build resilience, the training environment needs to be high in not only support, but also challenge.

If officials are given too much support and don’t face enough challenges, they are at risk of becoming complacent and unable to handle failure, which can easily become a problem later down the line.

A fascinating paper revealed what could happen if young referees are not challenged enough in the early stages of their careers. When the officials were eventually promoted, they found it really difficult to adapt to a more difficult level of football and took poor performances very hard.

Transitions to higher sporting levels are more likely to be successful if a referee is given enough resources to pick themselves back up after a poor performance. In this case, these resources will come from experiencing mistakes and errors early on, and thus learning how to cope.

Giving feedback greater weight

When we feel low, it promotes more detailed reflection because we overthink about what we’ve done wrong. From an official’s perspective, this means that any feedback they receive on corrections will be more deeply processed, because they tend to think a lot about what didn’t go to plan.

When things go wrong, it allows you to target feedback towards improvement, rather than simply stating what went well. In the long run, feedback aimed at fixing the mistakes will be more beneficial to performance.

Correcting the perception of ability

The aforementioned study about young referees reported that the officials felt under pressure to perform as well at a higher level, as they did when they were in lower down the pyramid, where they never really had a bad game.

At face value, these referees looked like top officials because they were rarely challenged. However, they were really only success because they were never getting pushed, and so didn’t know how to handle a poor performance.

The pressure to perform well under more difficult circumstances is enough to hinder performance, never mind the fact that the officials were not truly aware of their level of ability, and so had reached a plateau in their performance.

When Do The Emotional Lows Become A Problem?

Different individuals will have different emotional responses to different situations. This means that they will have different ways of thinking when they are in that low state, and for some referees, getting out of this state isn’t very easy.

The lows become an issue when they massively outweigh the highs, and the stress of officiating becomes too much. This will have damaging effects on both the performance and mental health of the referee.

Referees need long-term management of their emotional states to avoid becoming overwhelmed with stress and pressure.

So, how can you help yourself and your officials get out of a rut when this happens? There are lots of ways you can help yourself and your referees put a positive spin on the low moments, helping them to thrive under whatever conditions they are working in.

Offer constructive feedback on performance

As we touched on earlier, negative valence may promote more detailed reflection. As a coach or referee manager, you can take this opportunity to provide constructive feedback, because it will be processed on a deeper level.

Whilst positive feedback has been thought to be highly memorable and lift mood, it often has limited impact on performance. Think about if you were only told what you did well, yes, you would continue to do these things well, but you would not improve any further because you haven’t been given anything to improve on.

However, it’s important to recognise the severity of yours and your officials’ moods, because negative feedback might make them feel even worse and decrease their confidence. If this is the case, a little positive feedback could be exactly what the referee needs to hear.

Offer a listening ear

There’s an old saying that goes “we have two ears and one mouth for a reason.” Just by being someone your officials can offload their worries to could make a huge difference to their mood.

In this instance, feedback and advice might not be needed. By simply being there for your referee to talk to, they will feel understood and as though they have been heard.

Final Reflections

It’s important to recognise that creating a successful official shouldn’t be about maximising the highs and minimising the lows, but about teaching your referees that both are equally important in helping them develop along their career.

By using these tips to help your officials to cope with the lows, I have no doubt that they will thrive in fixtures and perform like the great referee they are. Remember to celebrate the highs too, enjoying every moment of their successes.

At The Third Team I work individually and in collaboration with different professionals where I have developed workshops and 1-2-1 sessions associated with Resilience and Mental Toughness Development to help referees. The workshops and 1-2-1 sessions are interactive, where referees are encouraged to open up and share their experiences to help themselves and each other.

Feel free to contact me if you’d like to know more about my workshops or 1-2-1 sessions and how I could help you or your officials.

Best Wishes,