10/09/2026
What If They Don’t Need to Belong?
We talk a lot about introverts and extroverts in coaching: who gets energy from people, who needs space, who likes a busy environment and who prefers to quietly get on with things. But I came across another term recently that made me stop and think: the otrovert.
It is a relatively new idea, and not one I would present as a neat psychological category with a huge evidence base behind it, but the concept itself is interesting. An otrovert can be sociable, confident and perfectly comfortable around other people, but may not have a particularly strong need to belong to a group. And that immediately made me think about sport.
Sport talks an awful lot about belonging. Team culture, club identity, squads, group environments, shared goals and being part of something can all be hugely important. But what if the athlete in front of you simply does not need those things in quite the same way? That does not necessarily mean they are antisocial, disengaged or difficult, and it certainly does not mean they do not care. They may simply be somebody who is very comfortable thinking independently.
In fact, they may be the person who is least concerned about doing something simply because everybody else is doing it. There are athletes who gain confidence from being surrounded by people who think like them, and there are others who are quite happy standing slightly outside the group and deciding for themselves what works. They may not be especially interested in the team WhatsApp group, the social side, matching kit, collective hype or constant reassurance that they are part of the gang, but they may still train incredibly hard, be completely reliable and care deeply about the people around them.
As coaches, I think we have to be very careful about the stories we attach to behaviour. The athlete who quietly leaves after training may not be aloof. The rider who chooses not to follow the latest training trend may not be stubborn. The person who questions the accepted way of doing something may not be trying to be difficult. They may simply have less need for approval from the group.
There may even be advantages to that. Sport is full of comparison: what everyone else is doing, what everyone else is riding, what everyone else is wearing, what everyone else is achieving and what everyone else thinks you should be doing next. An athlete who is less dependent on group approval may sometimes find it easier to step away from that noise and say, quite simply, “That might work for them, but it does not work for me.”
In equestrian sport, I find this particularly interesting. We have very strong cultures within disciplines, yards, training systems and competitive environments, and there can be quite established ideas about how things should be done. Sometimes those ideas are absolutely right. Sometimes they are simply what has always been done. The person who is comfortable standing slightly outside the group may be the person willing to question the difference.
Of course, independence can bring challenges too. Coaching still relies on trust, teams still require responsibility, and sometimes somebody who is very self-directed may need help recognising when independence has tipped over into isolation. But I think the bigger coaching lesson is this: a lack of conformity is not necessarily a lack of connection.
We do not need every athlete to demonstrate commitment in the same way. Some people feel safest when they belong strongly to the group. Others feel safest when they know they are free to remain themselves within it. Good coaching has room for both.
And perhaps instead of asking whether an athlete is a team player, we should sometimes ask a slightly different question: what does belonging actually need to look like for this person to perform at their best?
