Coaching as a leadership style for personal, professional and organizational development.

Part 1

The section, “Introduction to Emotional Intelligence coaching and Assessment,” taught that emotions are important in coaching. Mark McGuinness, author of Creative Management for Creative Teams says, “In addition to their core coaching skills, many external coaches have specialist expertise that makes them particularly suited to certain coaching assignments. Specialisms can include leadership, sales, negotiation, mediation, presentation skills, creativity, psychology and emotional intelligence” (McGuinness 16). Richard Boyatzis of Case Western University talks about a person who inspired us because they gave us a positive feeling about what we could achieve. That is a good coach with emotional intelligence as their specialty, the type of coach I hope to be. It was inspiring just learning that it was okay to be a positive coach rather than a negative one always criticizing.

Coaching should have a positive objective of getting the person being coached to perform their best. McGuinness says that coaching is goal-focused, and the goal is getting the person to do their best (McGuinness 26). While constructive criticism that is negative can be helpful, it should be balanced with more that is positive so that the person being coached feels good about themselves and looks forward to being coached rather than dreading it. I would rather inspire people in a way that they look forward to being coached than in a way that they dread it.

Coaches can achieve this emotionally intelligent coaching by listening to their coachees and looking at them to see what is going on with them. This develops empathy (McGuinness 27). Having empathy involved will always bring up emotions. One goal of coaching should be to get an emotional response. When emotions are involved, the coachees are more committed to the objectives (McGuinness 40). That is important to success for them and for me as the coach.

Part 2

The second part of the class was called, “The Art of Listening.” This section talks about how coaches inspire their coachees to be better leaders. Susan Ennis, Judy Otto, Lewis Stern, et al., authors of Principles and Guidelines for a Successful Coaching Practice echo McGuinness when they say that listening attentively with an open mind is one of the objectives of coaching (Ennis, Otto and Stern 30). They also bring up the emotional elements of coaching when they say, “Uses active listening techniques (e.g., maintaining full attention, periodically summarizing, being non-judgmental) to reflect and acknowledge the other person’s feelings and concerns” (Ennis, Otto and Stern 65). This is different than what most people think about business leaders. Most think they are driven people who lead because they are driven by some other passion such as a passion for power or wealth. I had not thought that perhaps a business leader can be driven by a desire to achieve success in leadership. It makes sense that a person wanting to achieve in this way would want a coach to help them.

In a video, Gregg Thompson talks about how leadership coaches will not coach unsuccessful leaders. If a person is a failure at leadership, a leadership coach is not going to help them. If they are a good leader, then a leadership coach can help them to be even better by teaching them about emotional intelligence, listening, and other aspects of leading.

I like this approach because it says that one needs to believe they are successful at least to want to have a coach, and the coach can only help a person get better and achieve the goals that the person being coached sets for him/herself. “Executive coaching is driven by specific goals agreed upon by all members of the coaching partnership. Such goals are based on feedback data that identify skills, behaviors and knowledge that the executive needs to develop to achieve specific business results” (Ennis, Otto and Stern 41). Despite the goals that are set by the person being coached, the coach has only one objective according to Thompson, helping the coachee to accelerate their ability as a leader (Thompson). Because of this, coaches will not offer advice, they will be positive but they will challenge their coachee and not pamper them. This sounds more like the conventional idea of coaches to me.

I am not so sure I agree with Thompson on some of what he says about coaching and the methods used by coaches. The fact that there was annoying—probably supposed to be inspiring—music playing in the background throughout the entire video did not help Thompson to sound credible to me. He has some good ideas but they seemed to be nearly opposite of what McGuinness says. Thompson makes it sound as if coaches are just constantly challenging a person, and while that is good, there is little emotion involved in it. Perhaps it is better as a coach to remember that one is coaching another human being that has emotions. Maybe one does not have to baby the person, but one does not have to be a stubborn, mean jerk either.

The parts of what Thompson says that I agree with include where he says that coaches offer a fresh perspective; however, just about anyone, such as a close friend, can offer that. I also like that Thompson says that coaches get the people they coach to ask themselves questions such as: “Have I earned the right to lead? Do I really help others? Is my team innovative? Do I create alignment throughout my organization?” (Thompson). These are important questions to find answers for, but a good leader should be able to ask and answer these questions without a coach. Perhaps Thompson does not really mean that coaches only coach already successful leaders because if they were successful they would have already asked and answered these questions.

Part 3

The last part of this class was about emotional self-awareness, or the ability to understand one’s own emotions, and emotional expression, the skill of expressing one’s own emotions effectively. These are definitely important skills to have as McGuinness points out. Being able to understand one’s own emotions and express them in a meaningful way ensures that when others do the same, one can have empathy for them. It is important to have empathy for the person one coaches because, as a coach, one needs to know what motivates, inspires, frightens, angers, etc. the person they are coaching. Then the coach can work with those emotions to bring out the best that the coachee can be. McGuinness says, “The ability to empathise with the coachee is critical to the coaching process, as it not only helps the coach to accept the other person on their own terms, but also sometimes to ‘tune in’ to emotions and thoughts of which they are not fully aware” (McGuinness). That way, as Thompson says, a coach can provide a different perspective on the issues that create the emotions in the person they are coaching. I like this approach to coaching.

This class has offered many new and useful insights. While I am not so sure that Thompson talks about the kind of coach I want to be, he has some good ideas that I find useful. The other sources for this class were helpful because they were positive, and for me that goes a long ways. I want to feel positive about everything I do and I want to inspire others in a positive way.

Works Cited

Boyatzis, Richard. "4 2 Module 4 2 The Positive PEA and Negative NEA Emotional Attractors." YouTube, 27 November 2013. Web. 4 October 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... .

Ennis, Susan, et al. Principles and Guidelines for a Successful Coaching Partnership. 6th. Executive Coaching Forum, 2015. Web. 4 October 2019. http://w3.unisa.edu.au/staffde... .

McGuinness, Mark. Creative Management for Creative Teams. London: Mark McGuinness, 2008. E-book. 4 October 2019. http://www.structum.pl/czyteln....

Thompson, Gregg. "What Does Great Leadership Coaching Look Like." YouTube, 6 June 2016. Web. 4 October 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... .