How Do You Lead Someone When the Relationship Is Damaged?
Two coaches, two star players, two very different answers
Principle: Damage Rarely Happens in One Moment
Every few weeks in Advantage, a coach asks me some version of the same question. What do you do when the relationship with a player is already broken. Usually they’re describing one blowup, a confrontation, a moment where something got said that couldn’t be unsaid. They want to know how to undo that moment.
But the research on relationship repair, most of it done by John Gottman studying marriages, doesn’t actually support that framing. Gottman found that strong relationships aren’t defined by the absence of conflict. They’re defined by successful repair attempts after conflict. The relationships that fail aren’t the ones with the biggest arguments. They’re the ones where small bids for connection went unanswered often enough that both people stopped making them.
That means the blowup a coach remembers is rarely the actual cause. It’s the moment the damage became visible. The real erosion usually happened earlier and quieter, in a string of small moments neither person thought was worth naming.
Which changes the question. It’s not “how do I undo that one conversation.” It’s “has anyone actually tried to repair this, or has everyone just been managing around it.”
Perspective: You Cannot Out-Perform a Broken Relationship
The instinct most coaches have when a relationship with a player goes sideways is to work harder at the work. Cleaner sessions, clearer tactical communication, more patience in the moment. The hope is that consistency will quietly repair what a hard conversation never addressed.
Sometimes that works. Usually it doesn’t, because good tactical coaching and a repaired relationship are two different products, and one does not substitute for the other. A player can respect your technical input and still not trust you. Those can sit side by side for a long time before something forces the issue.
Repair takes naming the damage out loud. Not a generic check-in, not “how are things going,” but an actual acknowledgment of the specific moment or pattern that broke something. Coaches avoid this because it feels like admitting failure, or because they’re afraid the conversation will make things worse before it makes them better. Both are true risks. Avoiding the conversation just trades a fast, uncomfortable risk for a slow, guaranteed one.
Story: Two Coaches, Two Broken Relationships, Two Different Calls
Phil Jackson inherited Dennis Rodman in 1995, a player whose relationship with authority, structure, and most of his previous coaches had already collapsed by the time he got to Chicago. Jackson didn’t try to bring Rodman into the standard team structure. During the 1998 playoffs, he agreed to let Rodman take a sanctioned 48-hour trip to Las Vegas in the middle of the postseason, a decision that would have ended most coaching relationships on the spot if it had gone wrong. Jackson’s bet was that trust built through flexibility would keep Rodman more engaged than trust demanded through rules. Rodman came back and helped the Bulls win another title. Jackson didn’t fix Rodman. He built a version of trust that worked for who Rodman actually was, instead of who a standard system needed him to be.
Pep Guardiola made the opposite call. When he took over Barcelona in 2008, Ronaldinho was still one of the most talented players in the world, a two-time FIFA World Player of the Year and a symbol of everything the club had recently been. But the relationship between Ronaldinho and the discipline the team needed had already broken down before Guardiola arrived. Guardiola didn’t try to repair it. In one of his first acts as manager, he told Ronaldinho he wasn’t part of the plan and moved him on to AC Milan within weeks. Guardiola’s read was that some relationships aren’t damaged, they’re simply over, and treating them as repairable wastes time that should go toward building something that can actually work.
Both coaches were right, because they were answering different questions. Jackson decided Rodman’s relationship with the team was worth the unconventional work of repairing. Guardiola decided Ronaldinho’s wasn’t, and that honesty about that was more useful than another attempt at repair. The skill in both cases wasn’t loyalty or toughness. It was an honest diagnosis of which situation they were actually in.
Question:
Think of a relationship with a player or staff member that feels stuck right now. Have you actually named what’s broken between you, or have you been quietly managing around it and hoping better work will fix it? And if you’re honest, is this a relationship you believe can be repaired, or one you’ve been avoiding ending?
Closing Thought:
Damage rarely happens in one moment.
It builds in the small moments nobody names.
Some relationships are worth the uncomfortable work of repairing.
Some are just over, and pretending otherwise wastes everyone’s time.
The skill is knowing which one you’re actually standing in.
Until next week,
Caleb Cousens
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