Enhancing coaching skills and emotional intelligence through training

The purpose of this paper is to compare the impact of a long‐term (13‐week, spaced learning) with a short‐term (two‐day, block intensive) coaching skills training programme on participants' coaching skills and emotional intelligence.

In the study 23 participants completed a 13‐week coaching skills training course which consisted of weekly 2.5‐hour workshops and action learning. In comparison, 20 participants completed a two‐day “Manager as Coach” training programme, with a three‐week action learning break between day one and day two. Both training programmes used the same coaching frameworks, with the two‐day programme being more condensed.

Participation in the 13‐week training course was associated with increases in both goal‐focused coaching skills and emotional intelligence, whereas the two‐day block intensive training was associated with increased goal‐focused coaching skills, but not emotional intelligence. Further, the magnitude of the increase in goal‐focused coaching skills was less for the two‐day programme than for the 13‐week programme.

These studies used a quasi‐experimental pre‐post design, and the long‐term effects were not measured. Future research should use control groups and random assignment to short‐ or long‐term training.

The main implications of these findings are that, while short, intensive programmes may improve participants' goal‐focused coaching skills, organisations seeking to deepen the impact of “Manager as Coach” training programmes and improve the underlying emotional intelligence of participants should use a spaced learning approach over a number of weeks.

This is the first study to examine the impact of different approaches to coaching skills training and their impact on emotional intelligence.