Knowing Isn’t Coaching: Three Emotional Intelligence Tools for Professional Coaches 🌱

Think about a situation where you thought it was important to know the answers. For example, maybe you’re in a meeting, and a boss asks a question, then is harshly critical of a “stupid answer.” Naturally, you might think, “I better know the answer if he asks me.”

What are some feelings that are pushing you in this situation? In this example, it might be fear of being the next person eviscerated by the bad boss… or pride in wanting to show off your knowledge… or what else?

There’s an element of comfort or safety or status in being the person with the answers. So, there’s some risk in not knowing. This threat pushes us to form protective patterns. 

What’s a pattern you have around not knowing? For example, “If I don’t know the answer, I think I’m not good enough,” and, “If I think I’m not good enough, I work harder.”

To find your pattern, observe yourself as you think about that past situation, and notice yourself in other situations where you don’t have the answers. When you feel some of that sense of threat-of-not-knowing, how do you typically react?

Once you’ve recognized the pattern from step 1, you can Apply Consequential Thinking and consider the costs and benefits. Every pattern has both costs (downsides) and benefits (upsides). Sometimes these costs or benefits are very short-term or even illusory, but they motivate us. In the example of, “If I don’t know the answer, I think I’m not good enough and work harder,” a benefit might be: It makes me listen and learn. 

A cost might be: I reduce my trust in myself.

This pattern is rooted in an external focus that’s, sadly, the basis of most classrooms: “The way is known by someone else, and my value is based on being able to tell them what they want to hear.”

If, on the other hand, we really embrace “No Way is The Way,” there isn’t an answer (or, there are many different answers). So that deficit-oriented approach doesn’t really work. If you apply this principle, what’s a different way of responding to not knowing? For example, instead of: “If I don’t know the answer, I think I’m not good enough and work harder,” perhaps:

“If I don’t know the answer, I think there’s an opportunity to learn and I feel more curious.”

One of the foundations of my work is the ‘radical’ notion that all emotions have value. Emotional intelligence is how we get that value (I explain this adaptive approach in Integrated Emotions or for more scholarship, check out the Adaptive Theory of Emotions – and, for a fun look at this, check out the trailer for the film Inside Out 2).

To explore this notion, let’s go back to your feelings around needing to know. As mentioned in the first strategy, it’s likely that when “needing to know,” you’re perceiving some form of threat from not-knowing… which means you’re likely to have feelings related to fear such as anxiety, worry, doubt, concern, insecure, vulnerable… for more ideas, get my big list of emotion words here – there’s a whole category of words related to “Possible Threat toward something we care about”).

Now, shift the emotion into a guide: If this feeling is asking you an important question in order to help you be a better coach… what’s it asking?

For example, it might be asking:

• How connected are you to emotions?
• How closely are you paying attention to what’s truly important for your client?
• What’s essential for your coaching right now?

What else? Please help build our collective insight by sharing in the comments below!