Coaching With the Essentials of Emotional Intelligence

[NOTE: I’ve asked Elizabeth Solomon to be a guest blogger, to share how coaches like her use emotional intelligence tools with their clients.]

When my client, a European physician, got diagnosed with COVID-19, we were almost eight weeks into a 12-week engagement. Within hours of my client’s diagnosis, she was relegated to a 120-square foot room in her own apartment. For the next two weeks, her husband would drop meals at the door, taking care of her basic needs until she was allowed to re-occupy their apartment. Our coaching went from the backdrop of her office to the backdrop of a small room she had used mostly for storage, nothing but a twin bed, and some brown shelves with books she had read for medical school. 

This is a client who, until then, had led a mostly out-of-the-house life. Her career was marked by public appearances, stacked commitments, and high expectations. Full of energy, she hates to sit still too long -- she is a person who prefers CrossFit to a casual stroll. Like many successful people, my client’s collaborations and achievements were the backbone of her identity. Seeing her get COVID was like watching a locomotive stopped dead in its tracks.

In Goleman’s model, the one I use in my coaching, EI is developed across four distinct areas: self-awareness—how we label, recognize, and understand our own emotions; self-management—how we apply self-awareness in order to self-regulate and respond without being impulsive or destructive; social awareness—how we understand the feelings and actions of others in the context of their environment; and relationship management—how we apply social awareness in order to interact with others in a more positive and constructive way. Within these areas are twelve competencies that can be practiced and learned—crucial abilities like empathy, positive outlook, self-control, conflict management, and teamwork.

In my coaching, I use a curriculum based on Goleman’s work which offers daily doses of EI education—small tidbits of information that can be digested within 10 to 15 minutes. The model, “LEARN, APPLY, REFLECT” means each lesson is coupled with a micro-technique in mindfulness, a suggestion for how to apply the learning, and an opportunity to share what you’ve discovered in the process. 

On our first Zoom call from quarantine, my client showed up looking surprisingly well. Not only was her COVID mild, but she immediately began crediting her wellbeing to the impact of our work with emotional intelligence. She told me how she was practicing self-awareness to understand her feelings and identify her triggers. 

She talked at length about the value of the techniques she'd learned and about how she was using a simple breathing practice we had gone over to keep herself from panicking. She shared that she had begun reading books she had always wanted to, connecting with her family over the phone in ways she hadn’t had the time for in her busy life, and listening to daily talks by her pastor. She was using empathy -- a critical EI competency -- to cultivate compassion for her husband, whose schedule she was now dependent on for her meals. She also talked about using empathy to tune in to the experience of those around her and how that helped her to feel less scared and alone. 

While emotional intelligence has gained significant traction in the corporate world for the benefits it has on business, it’s implications go far beyond. One of the greatest things about emotional intelligence is the roadmap it offers for improving ourselves and changing our relationship to the world. Parents become better parents because of EI. Partners become better partners because of EI.

As a coach, the EI curriculum I use has proven invaluable. There is only so much you can do in a short engagement -- this curriculum has provided a robust bank of practices with which to create real and lasting behavior change. 

As coaches, we are well-positioned to help our clients learn, through direct practice, how to leverage emotions to bolster their resilience . If you want to learn more about the building blocks of emotional intelligence, including how you might integrate it into your coaching practice, go here. This is a first-time opportunity to learn the Essentials of Emotional Intelligence with Daniel Goleman, plus get a look at the curriculum trained EI Coaches like me are using. 

Elizabeth Solomon