Tiger Moms and Executive Coaching: How they relate

There has so much been written in the last few weeks, both pro and con, about raising children in the “Chinese” tiger mom method. Included in this method is having high expectations, practicing behaviors that give rise to success, and being totally committed to that success. (I am not going to discuss what success means in this blog posting or go into Amy Chua’s book).

One of the underlying assumptions in this Tiger Mom philosophy is that intelligence is the most important piece and that focusing on those skills that enhance academic accomplishment, will lead to success. What is not stressed is the importance of Emotional Intelligence and how self-awareness and being socially savvy leads to higher levels of success.

From Willie Geist (no this is not sarcasm on my part) of Morning Joe who spoke of the best leaders are the ones who can build strategic relationships, or David Brooks of the NY Times who wrote, “They (the kids raised this way) grow up skilled and compliant but without audacity to be great”, the notion that there is more to happiness, success and greatness than academic excellence or high IQ.

So what does all this have to do with Executive Coaching?

Over the years, I would say that the majority of coaching I have done is to enhance and build on executives’ emotional intelligence. Executive coaching is first and foremost about believing that the executive will succeed. It is similar to the tiger moms’ belief that the child will succeed. Both the coach and the tiger mom look at building new skills through practicing new behaviors. One of the major differences, and there are many, is that my executive coaching stresses the importance of emotional intelligence. It is as important, if not, more important that the technical and scientific skills that got the executive to their current position. Many executives reach a level where leadership is required and that means knowing yourself and how to get others motivated to reach a goal. This is where EIQ comes in.

The people at the top are not always the smartest in terms of IQ, but most have superb emotional intelligence.