I am getting the opportunity to watch a lot of ball this winter because my AAU girls are HS freshmen now - no coaching til March! I see a lot of different styles. I take notes (mainly mental - hope I don't lose my mind).
I was much more of the screamer/berater category 5-6 years ago. I still lose it sometimes (I hate stupidity and laziness - sue me!). But I have dramatically altered my coaching style over the years. As I watch the various HS teams my players are on, I see coaches who scream and coaches who let their players play. The two most egregious screamers have players who don't make their own decisions well, they are looking to the bench for direction, they miss obvious scoring opportunities, they look tense and afraid to screw up, they play a robotic mechanical style, etc. I can't stand to watch it.
I have yet to see a coach that was a hard-core screamer that has had a positive impact on their team as a result of how they coach. I see plenty who don't scream that have some teams playing some pretty fluid ball.
One of my parents has a kid on a screamer's team and thought the screaming was a positive. He wanted me to consider being more in that style to toughen our girls up. So I watched half a game sitting next to him and shared my observations of what was happening on the floor. The team they played against thoroughly trounced them, the coach of that team simply coached, and there was no question that they were tough. The screamer's team was looking over their shoulders at the bench instead of seeing what was happening to them on the floor.
I did explain that every coach has their own style and you can only judge at the end of a season, or several seasons, who is and is not successful with their style ( I didn't bother to point out that the screamer's team has yet to go to the state finals, despite having some talented teams te past couple of years
). I also made clear to him that regardless of what he thinks of anybody's coaching style, he needs to support the team to his kid as long as she is on it. But he now understands my coaching philosophy a little better.