Coaching Culture with Ben Herring
Coaching Culture with Ben Herring
Podcast Description
Coaching Culture with Ben Herring is your weekly deep-dive into the often-overlooked “softer skills” of coaching—cultural innovation, communication, empathy, leadership, dealing with stress, and motivation. Each episode features candid conversations with the world’s top international rugby coaches, who share the personal stories and intangible insights behind their winning cultures, and too their biggest failures and learnings from them. This is where X’s and O’s meet heart and soul, empowering coaches at every level to foster authentic connections, inspire their teams, and elevate their own coaching craft. If you believe that the real gold in rugby lies beyond the scoreboard, Coaching Culture is the podcast for you.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast focuses on cultural innovation, leadership, empathy, communication, motivation, and stress management within coaching environments. Episodes include discussions on building team unity through personal stories, balancing professionalism while coaching friends or family, and navigating the challenges of cultural dynamics in different countries, like Kieran Crowley’s insights on coaching across borders.
Coaching Culture with Ben Herring is your weekly deep-dive into the often-overlooked “softer skills” of coaching—cultural innovation, communication, empathy, leadership, dealing with stress, and motivation. Each episode features candid conversations with the world’s top international rugby coaches, who share the personal stories and intangible insights behind their winning cultures, and too their biggest failures and learnings from them. This is where X’s and O’s meet heart and soul, empowering coaches at every level to foster authentic connections, inspire their teams, and elevate their own coaching craft. If you believe that the real gold in rugby lies beyond the scoreboard, Coaching Culture is the podcast for you.
A team loses a final. The microphone shows up. Most leaders reach for explanations, soft excuses, or someone to blame. We don’t. We play a short, stunning post-game interview from Gav Hickey, who coaches the Naval Academy in the United States, and we slow it down to hear what it reveals about real leadership, coaching culture, and what your players learn from your voice.
Gav’s message is all pride and perspective: he talks about the character of his players, the joy of spending time together, and the idea that the “ultimate prize” isn’t only a scoreboard. That single minute shows what values-based leadership looks like in the moment that tempts you most to abandon your values. If you coach rugby, lead a staff, or manage any high-performance team, you’ll recognize how quickly your words become the culture people live inside.
We also connect the interview to psychological safety, including Amy Edmondson’s research that the best teams report more mistakes because they feel safe enough to speak up. When leaders don’t blame refs, conditions, or luck, they remove the easy escape hatch and keep the focus on learning, ownership, and growth. We even talk about the “car ride home” and how parents and supporters can either reinforce excuse-making or help young athletes build accountability.
If you want your team to be braver, calmer, and more honest after a loss, start here. Subscribe, share this with a coach or parent who needs it, and leave a review with the line you want your team to hear after the next tough result.
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