A Research Paper By Ahmad Almarzooqi, Life Coach, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
The Use of EI/EQ
Emotional Intelligence (EI) or sometimes called Emotional Quotient (EQ) is a concept developed in the mid-1990s, by Daniel Goleman. Later, went into many stages of development and research with different schools of thought. The best definition I found for EI is (the measure of an individual’s abilities to manage their emotions, and the emotions of others, both one to one and in groups) (6). There are three main models of EI:
1. Ability Model
Views emotions as a piece of information that helps manage the social environment. Individuals’ ability to process information of an emotional nature and ability to relate emotional processing to a wider mindset.
2. Mixed Model
Introduced by Daniel Goleman, whose 1995 book Emotional Intelligence defines four main EI pillars:
- Self-Awareness – The ability to read own emotions and recognize the impact to guide decisions.
- Self-Management – Controlling own emotions during changing circumstances.
- Social -Awareness – Ability to sense, know, and react to others’ emotions during social networking.
- Relationship- Management – Ability to influence and develop others during the conflict.
3. Trait EI
Trait EI refers to an individual’s self-perception of their emotional abilities, measured by self-reporting.
EI/EQ in a Human Relationship
Interpersonal skills can be improved by the awareness of how to interact with others and by keeping practicing and reviewing these skills.
The Importance of Interpersonal Skills: Comes from day to day use to communicate and interact with other people, both individually and in groups/teams. The most important part is the communication skills (listening and effective speaking), in addition to the ability to control and manage your emotions during communication conflict. It allows you to work well with others formally and informally and communicate effectively with different kinds of people in different positions, family, friends, colleagues, or clients. It results to have better relationships at home and work. People with higher EI scores find it easier to maintain interpersonal relationships and to ‘fit in’ to groups or situations.
Interpersonal skills at home: Help you to communicate more effectively with family members and friends. Being at home and having a long-lasting relationship with your partner, knowing each other in detail may result in receiving regular feedback from your partner which can be taken in a positive way to help resolve small problems between you before they become big issues.
Interpersonal skills at work: To communicate and interact with a wide range and styles of people, suppliers, customers, co-workers/colleagues, organization section/project teams, and your manager. The ability to do so effectively will make the difference between a successful working life, and one annoyed, blaming others, or keep asking what went wrong.
Interpersonal skills are more important for some key jobs like customer-facing roles (sales, public relations, media, and customer relations management) and are prerequisites in many organizations before work assignments. However, there are several other jobs and careers where interpersonal skills are needed at various stages of work like call centers and home delivery staff. Here are some questions to ask to understand this skill in you and others and the way of measurement:
- How can people distinguish and understand emotions in themselves?
- How can people learn to recognize emotions in others?
- How can people manage their emotions and relationships more successfully?
Intrapersonal Awareness: The extent of awareness to which individuals are in touch with their emotions
Regulation: The extent to which an individual can maintain positive emotional states
Expression: The extent to which an individual can communicate desired emotional states to others
Interpersonal Detection: The extent to which an individual aware of others’ emotions
Influence: The extent to which an individual can intentionally affect others’ moods, thoughts, and behaviors.
Empathy: The extent to which an individual can feel what others are feeling.
Conversations and Feedback
This is giving feedback on personal relationships using correct words in the right way and at the correct time. It is important how the receiver perceived your statement not what your intention was.
Decisions, Negotiation, and Conflict
It is how the conversation pathway ends up in conversation for decision making, especially if you start with the pre-Judgment approach, where your views turn out to be opposed. Learning to make decisions together is difficult if you have always made your own. When did the decision-making turn into a negotiation? In many scenarios, because what one person sees as a joint process, the other may see it as an effort to influence, or a challenging negotiation. This, in turn, means that negotiating ends up win-lose and never to be a successful long-term strategy. Instead, you must shift your mindset to a win-win outcome, where you work together to compromise and accommodate so both achieve jointly full or part of the set goal.
Use of EI to Maintain a Positive Relationship
A positive relationship is a key to the success of any two people who support and help each other practically and emotionally, individually or in groups/teams working on common objectives or projects. According to Dr. Fisher, healthy communication is the most important part of a healthy relationship. Here are Dr. Fisher’s tips for healthy communication in a relationship:(Remember that you’re not speaking to yourself. Try to understand where the other person is coming from and how they understand the world when communicating with them. Be willing to hear something that doesn’t fall within what you’ve predetermined to be true. Listen without preparing your rebuttal or response) (7). Following practices will result in healthy relationships:
- Listen to each other and communicate without judgment. This includes communicating effectively about common important subjects, to ensure that both parties are satisfied with their expectation.
- Work collaboratively as a team rather than as two self-serving individuals.
- Be disciplined. It’s easy to let your partner down and show your worst side around people you are close with, which is why the phrase “You always hurt the ones you love” rings true to many. People in healthy relationships have the discipline to not treat their counterparts poorly just because they are close (4).
- Avoid focusing on what you want from the other person instead, focus on how the relationship can be mutually beneficial.
The Power of Habits
Habits control and change to a positive one is key in EI, habits can be ignored, changed, or replaced but the discovery of the habit loop is so important: (When a habit emerges, the brain stops fully participating in decision making. It stops working so hard or diverts focus to other tasks. So, unless you deliberately fight a habit, unless you find new routines, the pattern will unfold automatically) (5).
The main rule in habit change (you can’t define easily bad ones, but you can change them). If Youcan finds the cause and rewards, you can change with some effort and success factors, you must work on inherited limited beliefs.
The funny thing about habits is that when you read about this field of research, you want to know the secret formula for quick changes this formula is not available.
No single plan can work for all habit changes. Individuals and habits are all different, and so the patterns differ from person to person, and from behavior to other. Such change is not fast, and not always easy, needs time and effort, and hence with consistency and effort, any habit can be reshaped. The Framework as per Charles Duhiggare (5):
- Identify the routine
- Experiment with rewards
- Isolate the cue
- Have a plan
How a Coach Can Develop His Own EI/EQ
Developing your emotional intelligence and becoming a successful coach start with your self-regard. If you truly value yourself for who you are, not just what you do, then you will be more inclined to truly respect others and less likely to judge them. There is no easy recipe to improving your self-esteem- it takes time, willpower, focus, effort, and patience.
Humility, versatility, listening, not taking things personally, separating observation from evaluation, learning the power of a positive No, taking responsibility for your feelings and needs, and looking for the best in others are the foundation of relationship building, and they all become more important in the face of conflict. Managing and resolving conflict creatively and effectively also involves continuous learning and a commitment to never tire of change. Intelligent disagreement and fruitful debate are great catalysts for the creative process.
EI is a key in the function of the coach. The coach should be able to control his emotion and then guide the client for future desired changes. One of the main traps that coaches regularly fall into is a client’s emotional stories. If you are not able to manage your own emotions effectively, it will be extremely difficult to guide others in enhancing their emotion and management skills. There are many online paid and free tools for EI assessment using different models, these tools will provide the coach with the gaps in EI and areas of focus based on individual function and role. Once the assessment is done, then EI customized training must be developed with daily practice and monitor the changes. Regular reflection and 360-degree assessment are key in the development of top-rated EI, the use of other coaches’ and supervisors’ feedback will add value to the journey of EI development.
EI is more than emotional recognition and management, it involves using own emotions effectively to enhance mind capability and increase self-development. The coach must demonstrate high EI skills by being aware of and managing his emotions and the emotions of others to be able to call it quality coaching (2)
The Four Skills of EI Coaching Are:
- Listening
- Questioning
- Empathy
- Rapport
Over recent years, coach Supervision has grown as a practice with more and more coaches employing their Coach Supervisors to make sure they are on a path of continual development when it comes to their emotional intelligence and coaching presence.
Use of EI in Coaching
Developing EI in clients as individuals are increasingly seeking new approaches to help them set, manage, communicate, and achieve goals in many aspects of their lives (career, relationships, finances, parenting, etc). Strong interpersonal, coping, creative thinking, and anger management skills are important in achieving such goals and coaches are the ideal partners to work with on emotional intelligence.
Through a process of self-discovery and increasing self-awareness, clients can develop this emotional intelligence and consequently benefit in all areas of their lives. The coach may face different mentally or angry clients where he must direct his attention to the subject rather than behavior or story to manage the coaching session effectively.
Strong emotional intelligence is a key requirement for all coaches. The ability to manage emotions and maintain a “coaching presence” while working with clients is essential. The coach needs to be able to put his thoughts, feelings, and judgments aside while listening to a client. He needs awareness of his own ‘inner dialogue’ and be able to move it to one side and refocus on the client. The need to be able to move flexibly and swiftly in any direction, always following the lead of the client and not being held back by own inner stories or thoughts. The need to listen and act intuitively whilst maintaining a strong ‘coaching presence’.
These skills come from high levels of EI, and all can be developed. Often it is a matter of training your conscious brain to be aware of, and able to manage your subconscious brain. This illustrates the differences and interdependent functions of the emotional subconscious brain and the thinking conscious brain
importantly identifying that “not only does the person being coached benefit from such a relationship, but also the person coaching”.recognizing the real self; developing options that lead to to a learning agenda plan; the practice of these new ideas; focus on the trusting bonds and relationships to maintain the change process. These components of conceptualization or the “ideal self” are an ideal image of the desired future which is then built around a mindfulness goal-directed focus (1)
For Client:
A key element in coach practice is connecting with people and creating dialogue to understand hidden prospects, beliefs, values, purpose, and limitations in clients. In the first coaching session, my objective will be to open these hidden states in the client’s subconscious mind, my job is to disconnect my client from history and take him to the future desired state, reconnect the client to his purpose, and the set objectives. The journey needs a lot of effort from the client to realize his limitation and put a practical effort to change as well as effort from the coach to focus and control his emotion.
The EI assessment will provide a gap in client skills and habits that need the special program to follow(training and practice with regular repeated performance assessment)
People with higher emotional intelligence are also better at understanding their psychological state, which can include managing stress effectively and being less likely to suffer from depression (3).
The Use of EI/EQ in a Coaching Practice
EI is key in human relationships and hence linked directly to many coaches’ competencies. Positive relationships are needed in our daily social life both for physical and virtual contact. EI skills can be developed over time and need self-awareness, training, practice, and supervisor feedback to create a positive relationship with clients and be able to take clients to future needed change.
Practicing a coach with self-awareness and presence will make you a better coach because you are experiencing the very process of growth and development that you are asking your clients to engage in, this itself is the best area to develop EI skills. Supervisors and client feedback plus your own reflection are other key elements that can add value to coaches’ EI development.
References
The Importance of EI in Coaching, 2016, by P. Nivetha and Dr. S. Sudhamathi.
Emotional intelligence coaching, 2009, by Stephen Neale, Lisa Spencer-Arnell, and Liz Wilson, Kogan PageLimited.
Life coaching connection, (How coaching changes live) - 2012 by Steve Chandler.
The Art of Connection: 7 Relationship-Building Skills Every Leader Needs, 2017 by Michael J. Gelb.
The power of habit: why we do what we do in life and business, 2014, by Charles Duhigg, Random House Trade Paperbacks.
The Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence and Performance Among Executive Coaches, 2020, Valerie Elizabeth Charles - Walden University.
https://www.nm.org/
https://www.insider.com/
https://www.skillsyouneed.com/