Emotional Intelligence is Key to Coaching. Part II

Now that you have some theory of EI, it is always good — for retention and absorption — to follow it up with its application… the practice side of the theory. Refer to the image below for examples… of powerful questions.

As a coach, you’ve got to have a flexible mindset, embrace uncertainty, have joy in exploration and discovery… with your coachee! That means that you do not provide the solution; you do not identity the problem; you do not prescribe anything to solve the problem. Take that coaching stance.

Instead, you lead the coachee to self-discovery of the solution… along the journey, be intellectually curious…ask powerful questions…have a conversation with the coachee… and have a flexible mindset… be adventurous, take the less traveled path.

Examples can help remove muscle memory (bad habits) of the past … it is a good start… but move beyond… you have to free yourself up from the clutches of these ‘canned examples’. You and the coachee must explore and discover pathways towards a solution in a creative way … in the here and now … in the state of flow of the moment… no prejudging… be focused in the now… neither in the past nor in the future.

To me, this ‘coaching’ is much like playing Chess…how so?

To be continued…