Paul Stokes, director, Coaching and Mentoring Research Unit, Sheffield Business School, Sheffield Hallam University, argues for a formal link between emotional intelligence and leadership development
Since the work of Daniel Goleman (1996; 1999) popularised the notion of emotional intelligence (often referred to as EQ), it has become an accepted part of the language used to define modern leadership. Indeed, writers such as Martyn Newman (2009) have taken the concept forward in terms of defining the competencies that are necessary for effective modern leadership.
Based on research he and colleagues have done, a tool he calls the Emotional Capital Report (ECR) has been developed which, like other 360 tools, can enable individuals and their colleagues to assess their EQ. The interesting aspect of this tool for coaches, however, is that the
ECR suggests coaching strategies that can be used to enable the individual to develop their EQ.
This approach, then, is consistent with coaching in two senses: first, it sees the coaching intervention to be critical to the process and second, because, as in coaching, the underlying assumption made is that the individual is always in the process of ‘becoming’ rather than having a fixed and determined level of EQ.
Newman’s approach, like that of Goleman (1996; 1999), identifies emotional competencies that are important in leaders:
1. Self-Knowing
2. Self-Confidence
3. Self-Reliance
4. Self-Actualisation
5. Straightforwardness
6. Relationship Skills
7. Empathy
8. Self-Control
9. Adaptability
10. Optimism
Of course, most coaches will recognise these terms and work with them. What we are finding, however, is that using this tool brings some benefits.
First, it gives us a language and a framework that both parties can understand and engage with. The profile produced can demonstrate where raters in the questionnaire have experienced the individual differently. This very useful starting point for the coaching conversation can then expand into other conversational arenas not directly connected to these competencies.
Second, it brings others’ perspectives into the room in a way that the client, on their own, cannot. We are looking to explore further how we can use this, and other tools, to inform our work using team coaching. Hawkins (2011) and Clutterbuck (2007), among others, offer a conceptual framework for team coaching in terms of process and impact.
My view is that Newman and others’ research base can be extended to develop a profile of an emotionally intelligent leadership team. This has exciting implications, as it may be possible to profile what this looks like in different sectors and contexts. For instance, does the EQ team profile of a senior management team (SMT) in a large private pharmaceutical firm need to look different from the SMT of a regional hospital? If so, what interventions does a team coach need to make to help SMTs (or other sorts of team) develop?
We are also looking to work with research in this area to examine whether there are differences between men and women in terms of their EQ (current research suggests there is) and as to the impact of age on EQ (current research suggest EQ increases up to the age of 50 and then flattens off).
In summary, while the link between coaching and EQ has been acknowledged for some time, the two fields have developed in fairly separate and different ways. However, in leadership development, there seems to be a strong argument for re-integrating these approaches more formally.
References
l D Clutterbuck, Coaching the Team at Work, London: Nicholas Brealey, 2007
l D Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, London: Bloomsbury, 1996
l D Goleman, Working with Emotional Intelligence, London: Bloomsbury, 1999
l P Hawkins, Leadership Team Coaching: Developing Collective Transformational Leadership, London: Kogan Page, 2011
l J D Mayer, M T DiPaolo & P Salovey, “Perceiving affective content in ambiguous visual stimuli: A component of emotional intelligence”, in Journal of Personality Assessment, 54, 1990
l M Newman, Emotional Capitalists: The New Leaders, Chichester, UK: Jossey-Bass, 2009
Coaching at Work, Volume 9, Issue 2