摘要：The purpose of the research was to investigate the differences between the psychological characteristics of coaches who have been working in their field for a longer period of time and are older (age 35+) and those of younger (up to age 34) coaches who have recently begun their coaching careers. One key characteristic of the coaching profession is the significant stress to which coaches are often subjected, and we attempted to investigate whether large amounts of stress affect the coaches' psychological characteristics. We compared differences in personality traits, achievement motivation, leadership characteristics, social skills, emotional intelligence, and values. To assist in analysing each of these characteristics, we applied suitable psychological questionnaires. 275 Slovene coaches participated in this study, and we found the younger coaches to be more conscientious, more interested in cultural activities, more open to new experiences, and more tolerant. Furthermore, we observed that the younger coaches have achieved a better level of control over their emotions. Older coaches tend to be more democratic leaders, use less autocratic approaches, and report job – related problems more frequently. Some of these differences may be attributed to disparate levels of education, as younger coaches are generally better educated than their older counterpairs. We found two characteristics that favour the older coaches – they tend to emphasise the importance of excellence and are more likely to delegate leadership tasks, whilst younger coaches could be described as friendlier. Our results show that older coaches are exposed to more stress, which is reflected mainly in their attitudes towards their professional values.
关键词：coaches; personality traits; social skills; leadership; emotional intelligence
