Unlock Your Leadership Potential With Emotional Intelligence & Transformative Coaching

Written by Gilles Varette, Business Coach

30 years of experience in Leadership: NCO in a paratrooper regiment in his native France, leading a global virtual team for a Nasdaq-listed company, Board stewardship, Coaching, and Mentoring. Gilles, an EMCC-accredited coach, holds a Master’s in Business Practice and diplomas in Personal Development and Executive Coaching, as well as Mental Health and Well-being.

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Explore how coaching transcends emotional intelligence to foster profound leadership growth. This article delves into the essence of coaching, highlighting its power to unlock self-awareness, resilience, and purposeful leadership. Discover practical insights and tools to harness your potential and lead with clarity and impact.

Perfect for leaders and professionals seeking transformative growth, the article blends cutting-edge research with actionable practices and real-world stories. Whether you're new to coaching or looking to deepen your leadership journey, you'll gain frameworks, reflection prompts, and strategies to cultivate emotional agility, align with your values, and shape a resilient team culture. Step into purposeful leadership with clarity, confidence, and a coach’s mindset.

Looking back, moving forward

You know that moment when the inbox is full, the team is waiting, and you’re wondering if you’ve drifted from your core values.

That’s not failure, that’s leadership calling for recalibration.

Over the past year, I’ve written on various subjects such as mindset, emotional intelligence, resilience, culture, and many more. Not because I had every answer, but because I was discovering new questions. Those questions led to deeper coaching, better outcomes, and a more aligned practice.

This piece brings those threads together as a reflection on how leadership, real, sustainable leadership, begins from within.

I’ve come to realize that resilience, the quiet ability to get back up again, is at the heart of both leadership and coaching. As Angela Duckworth puts it (2019), “fall seven, rise eight.” It’s not about perfection. It’s about persistence, purpose, and a belief that growth is always possible.

Coaching begins with self-awareness

You can’t lead others clearly if you’re disconnected from yourself. The coaching journey often starts with a pause, not to retreat, but to reconnect.

There’s a model I often return to in coaching, one that quietly but powerfully helps clients reconnect with themselves. It’s based on four purposes of reflection:

• Developing self-awareness

• Learning from experience

• Supporting continuous growth

• Creating meaningful change

These aren’t checkbox exercises. They’re lived turning points. One client described the shift as “finally being able to hear my thinking without the pressure to fix it all.” That’s what real growth sounds like: subtle, steady, deeply personal.

Reflect: What belief are you holding that might be limiting you or your team?

Try this: End-of-day awareness journal

Take 5 minutes at the end of each day:

• What moment challenged me today?

• What emotion came up, and what did it tell me?

• Did I act in alignment with my values?

• What do I want to carry forward tomorrow?

For deeper insight, pair this journaling practice with Naomi Shragai’s advice (2021) from Work Therapy: notice emotional triggers at work and connect them to recurring patterns in your professional life. Self-awareness isn’t just insight; it’s your first tool for transformation.

Growth mindset in practice

Inspired by Carol Dweck’s research (2017), try reframing challenges as opportunities for learning.

When something feels difficult, ask:

• What am I learning from this?

• How might I grow from it, even if I fail?

Learning from experience

Many leaders I work with arrive feeling overwhelmed, not due to lack of skill, but from the noise around (and within) them. Coaching isn’t about handing over solutions. It’s about making space to listen inward, find clarity, and learn from your own lived experience.

One leader told me she felt like she was “losing herself.” Through coaching, she didn’t just “solve” problems; she remembered what mattered most to her. And from that anchor, decisions became clearer.

Ask: What did last week teach you that you haven’t yet acknowledged?

Try this: Weekly reflection (Sunday night reset)

• What surprised me this week?

• What patterns did I notice in how I responded?

• Where did I feel stuck? What support would help?

• What values do I want to lead with in the week ahead?

Naomi Shragai (2021) also recommends addressing imposter syndrome by focusing on strengths and keeping a success log. Reviewing your accomplishments weekly can boost confidence and reinforce positive self-perception.

In every coaching journey I’ve witnessed, whether one session or a long arc, three things eventually surface:

1. The relationship: built on trust, empathy, and presence

2. The motivation: what the client truly values and wants

3. The beliefs: which ones support growth, and which need to be reframed

From there, real change becomes possible, not from force, but from insight.

Emotional intelligence isn’t soft, it’s a leadership power tool

Emotional intelligence (EI) is your ability to notice, understand, and manage emotions, both your own and others’. It’s not about staying calm all the time; it’s about choosing your response, rather than reacting on autopilot.

From Daniel Goleman (2005) to Susan David (2016), emotional intelligence experts agree that the path starts with self-awareness and self-regulation. In practice, this means recognizing emotional triggers, breathing through stress, and naming what we feel, without judgment.

Susan David’s work on emotional agility emphasizes how leaders can engage with their thoughts and emotions in a mindful, values-driven, and productive way, instead of getting hooked by them. It’s not about suppressing what we feel, but about facing our emotions with curiosity and courage.

I learned this the hard way. For years, I brushed off emotion or let it explode at the wrong time. It wasn’t a lack of control. It was a lack of understanding.

One moment at work, feeling deeply mistrusted, triggered me to storm into someone’s office. That outburst became a turning point. I began to see emotions not as enemies, but as signposts pointing to values and unmet needs.

Ask yourself: What emotion are you bringing into this meeting, and is it helping?

Try this: 3-step emotion reset (in the moment)

1. Pause: Take one slow breath

2. Label: “I’m feeling frustrated/confused/anxious”

3. Choose: “What would a values-aligned response look like here?”

Also consider practical strategies from the article Enhancing Emotional Intelligence – Key Skills For Leadership And Personal Growth

• Practice mindfulness to improve presence

• Use breathing techniques like 4-4-4 (inhale, hold, exhale for four seconds each)

• Reframe stress as a challenge rather than a threat.

When coaching shifts the culture

Coaching doesn’t just transform individuals. It ripples through teams, reshaping cultures from the inside out.

I’ve seen it in boardrooms, in crisis, and quiet moments:

• A better question asked at the right time

• A pause before reacting

• A word of gratitude when silence is easier

These moments don’t always make headlines, but they build cultures of trust and resilience.

Reflection prompt: What unspoken message is your mindset sending to your team right now?

Try this: 1-week leadership culture challenge

Pick one behaviour to model each day:

• Monday: Ask a better question in a tough moment

• Tuesday: Express appreciation to someone unexpected

• Wednesday: Pause before reacting under pressure

• Thursday: Acknowledge an emotion (yours or someone else’s)

• Friday: Share one thing you’re learning, not just doing

For deeper team impact, apply principles from emotional intelligence:

• Create space for inclusion and diverse perspectives

• Model empathy through active listening and perspective-taking

• Proactively address signs of team stress

Coaching isn’t advice, it’s activation

Coaching isn’t about being told what to do. It’s about rediscovering your clarity, values, and capacity for action.

It’s a space where:

• Questions matter more than answers

• Emotional clarity becomes strategic power

• Quiet shifts lead to lasting change

Coaching helps people get unstuck from outdated beliefs, from imposter syndrome, from patterns they didn’t even realize were holding them back. It’s a space to gently challenge those assumptions and build new strategies rooted in self-trust and possibility.

Frameworks like GROW can support this journey, helping clients clarify their Goals, understand Reality, explore Options, and step forward with Will and intention.

One client said, “There wasn’t a single session where I didn’t move forward.” Another called it “a calm reset in the middle of the storm.”

That’s what being coached is about:

It’s not about becoming someone else.

It’s about finally having the space to become who you already are, with intention.

Voices from the journey

“There wasn’t a single session where I didn’t move forward.” – Senior Leader, Healthcare

“A calm reset in the middle of the storm.” – Startup Founder

“You helped me articulate the challenge and trust my instincts again.” – Social Entrepreneur

“Gilles brings strategic thinking and empathy, exactly what I needed.” – Board Chair, Non-Profit Sector

“Learning to spot my emotional triggers changed how I lead.” –  Engineering Manager (inspired by Work Therapy)

Ready to lead from within? Two invitations for the road ahead

If something here sparked recognition, a challenge, a decision, or a desire to reconnect with what matters, I’d be glad to explore it with you.

Start your own leadership practice

You don’t need to wait for a title, crisis, or formal program to begin leading from within. You can start today, with curiosity and courage.

Try these simple steps:

• Journal regularly using prompts like:

  • What drained me today? What energized me? What do I want to lead with tomorrow?

• Pause before reacting, use the space to reflect, not just respond.

• Connect back to your values before making a big decision.

Need structure or inspiration? I’ve created two free companion guides to support your journey toward greater self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and reflective practice. Both include step-by-step tools, templates, and action prompts based on my personal and coaching experience.

• New to coaching or hesitant?

  • Get the free "Pre Coaching Curiosity Guide"

• Ready to go deeper?

  • Download the free guide: Leadership Starts Within – A Practical Toolkit for Coaching and Reflection for a practical, hands-on approach to growth and leadership.

Explore coaching with me

Introducing my signature coaching framework

If this article resonated with you, I’d like to share the model that brings all of these ideas together in a clear, practical way: the L.E.A.D. From the Within framework.

It’s a simple yet powerful structure I use with leaders to help them:

• Lead themselves first: through self-awareness and values alignment

• Harness emotional agility: to respond, not react, under pressure

• Activate insights: turning reflection into consistent action

• Shape team culture: through small, intentional behaviours that ripple outward. You can download the free eBook here.

It includes the 4 pillars, signature tools, and step-by-step actions so you can start leading from within today.

If you're navigating change, complexity, or leadership growth, a focused coaching conversation might help illuminate your next step.

• A complimentary 30-minute discovery call, no pressure, just space to think clearly.

• A sounding board for challenges you can’t unpack alone.

• You’ll leave with clarity and one actionable step, whether we work together or not. Book a call with me or visit getunstuck.ie, or my profile on coaching.com to learn more.

  
  

Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info!

Read from Gilles Varette

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Gilles Varette, Business Coach

30 years of experience in Leadership: NCO in a paratrooper regiment in his native France, leading a global virtual team for a Nasdaq-listed company, Board stewardship, Coaching, and Mentoring. Gilles, an EMCC-accredited coach, holds a Master’s in Business Practice and diplomas in Personal Development and Executive Coaching, as well as Mental Health and Well-being. He strongly believes that cultivating a Growth Mindset is the key to Personal Development and a natural safeguard against the expertise trap. He lives by this quote from Epictetus: “It is not what happens to you that matters, but how you react; when something happens, the only thing in your power is your attitude toward it.”

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References:

• David, S.A. (2016). Emotional agility: get unstuck, embrace change, and thrive in work and life. New York: Avery An Imprint Of Penguin Random House.

• Duckworth, A. (2019). Grit: why passion and persistence are the secrets to success. London: Vermilion.

• Dweck, C. (2017). Mindset: Changing the Way You Think to Fulfill Your Potential. London: Robinson.

• Goleman, D. (2005). Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. New York: Bantam Books.

• Shragai, N. (2021). The Man Who Mistook His Job for His Life. Random House.