The Value of Emotional Intelligence for High Performance Coaching: A Commentary

Abstract

INTRODUCTION In their article, Jonathan Chan and Clifford Mallett attempted to highlight the conceptual validity and the practical utility of the Emotional Intelligence (EI) construct for highperformance sport coaches. Due to a lack of extensive research on EI in sport settings, the authors contextualize management and workplace literatures to sport settings by using the Mayer and Salovey’s [1] four-branch model of EI (i.e., perceiving, using, understanding, and managing emotions). They also provide examples of how the proficiency in emotionregulation skills across these four areas of expertise might enhance the quality of coaching and the production of high performance. Thus the idea to introduce the main aspects of this research direction in sport seems quite appropriate. Several issues in the paper also provide a good basis for comments with a special emphasis on real emotional experiences in sport associated with emotion expertise.