Fred Bakker COACHING Purposeful Living & Career Performance

Attributes of a “really good Executive Coach” – according to Dr. Richard Oxtoby:

• Good listener – part of excellent communication skills

• Unconditional positive regard (Carl Rogers)

• Ability to suspend judgement or be non-judgemental

• Emotional Intelligence – Recognising and understanding own emotions and being able to read cues (including non-verbal) which convey information about other’s emotional states – and then responding appropriately to achieve desired results.

• Empathy

• Ability to maintain good boundaries between self and other – or ability to recognise and keep own and others issues, values, etc. separate.

• Honest, open and transparent – or being genuine/authentic without hidden motives

• Sound knowledge of fundamentals of human psychology such as typical defence mechanisms, transference, counter-transference, projection, etc.

• Ability to give negative feedback in a diplomatic/considerate/constructive manner.

Adapted from: Oxtoby, R. (2009) Deep Structure Executive Coaching. Cape Town: New Voices Publishing.

“Critically important” competencies – according to Richard Boyatzis:

• “Emotional Self-Awareness - from the Self-Awareness cluster of EI competencies”

• “Empathy - from the Social Awareness cluster of EI competencies”

Source: Boyatzis, R.E.(2005). Core competencies in coaching others to overcome dysfunctional behavior. In Vanessa Druskat, Gerald Mount, & Fabio Sala, (eds.). Emotional Intelligence and Work Performance. Erlbaum. 81-95. [Online] http://www.eiconsortium.org