Communication between coach and coachee is essential to successful outcomes. As such effective communication is fundamental to the process of coaching.
Effective communication can be viewed through the prism of emotional intelligence, a term coined by Daniel Goleman and further refined by Mayer and Salovey as
“the ability to perceive emotions, to access and generate emotions to assist thought, to understand emotions and emotional knowledge, and to reflectively regulate emotions to promote emotional and intellectual growth”.
Emotional intelligence is a multidimensional construct that if honed, is a skill for effective coaching which is essentially aimed at growth through the achievement of identified goals.
Specifically, as coaches, we practice emotional intelligence through:
(1) Attention (perception of the cues); We actively listen as you articulate your challenges and problems.
(2) Clarity: We check through active listening that we have understood you correctly. Listening is the most fundamental component of interpersonal communication. Active listening means:
(3) Skill: we are qualified coaches, we apply coaching tools that may be useful in any given situation. As mentors, and with your agreement, we may share experiences and suggest options.
(4) Reflective regulation of own and others’ emotional states: We manage our own emotions in a facilitative manner, delaying gratification, and handling distress); We resist the temptation to ‘solve’ or fix our problems by leaping in with a self-gratifying solution, but instead, keep our own emotions in check, facilitating our own problem-solving and goal achievement.
(5) Motivation (striving and persevering toward one’s goals); We have a motivational role to play, communicating verbally and non-verbally that the relationship is a joint enterprise, working together to identify and achieve goals
(6) Empathy (recognizing others’ feelings, establishing rapport, taking another’s perspective); We empathise with you by playing back, and asking for confirmation of what has been said and expressed.
As coaches and coachees, we will feel this connection within the short time of 10-15 minutes of a chemistry session.
If it’s not there, it’s highly unlikely coaching will work.
If it’s there, the sky’s the limit!