Charisma and Coaching

Charisma can be equated with being emotionally contagious - that is with having an exceptional ability to induce one's own feelings and emotions in others. This is an ability we all have though it is often unconscious. We've all had the experience of coming home after a good day at work or wherever feeling great - and within 5 minutes of walking in through the front door being in a foul mood because our partner or spouse has had a terrible day and has 'shared' this by evoking the self-same emotions in us (or maybe this just happens to me!).

This set me thinking about charisma and coaching. Humans are emotionally open loop - we close the loop by resonating emotionally with others. This happens in our coaching sessions - we are affected by our coachee's emotional state which can allow us to pick up what is going on for our coachees even when they are unaware of. And we also affect their state. We can try to be emotionally neutral (does such a state exist?) or we can use this connection for the coachee's good. Our ability to use our emotional state then becomes another intervention to add to our repertoire. For more on this see the Sentic States model which explores the 7 fundamental emotional rhythms we can express.