Inspire your future leaders
Jane Turner, associate dean of the executive development portfolio at Newcastle Business School,looks at how your organisation can benefit from the short-term goals of coaching; and mentoring, the longer-term tailored development of the individual.
If we look to the people development literature, we find ongoing narratives aiming to determine the differences between coaching and mentoring. Against an organisational landscape of increasing pressure, tension and stress, leaders and managers need to demonstrate unprecedented agility. For those who adopt coaching and mentoring as the way forward, they can create an enormous impact. Given the gravity of this, leaders and managers deserve a depth of discussion that enables them to really ‘get under the skin’ of these powerful interventions, as opposed to simply listing differences.
Coaching is increasingly recognised as a powerful development intervention; a significant journey of self development, enabling leaders and managers to work in a more authentic way, ultimately leading to enhanced levels of performance. Research undertaken by the Newcastle Business School at Northumbria University, shows that leaders and managers experience significant ‘plasticity’ in relation to their roles and struggle to feel ‘authentic’.
Coaching should create a safe, challenging, confidential environment. The ultimate challenge within the organisational context is to build trust, honesty and confidentiality – and minimise political manoeuvring and narcissism. Achieve his and the results for the individuals concerned can be overwhelming.
Given this trajectory, it is helpful to view coaching on a continuum to explore its scope and impact. If we zoom in at one end, we find executive coaching. This involves working with the coachee in some depth, typically exploring values, beliefs, motives, goals, building reflective ability and enhancing emotional intelligence. The domain of the executive coach should involve significant knowledge of coaching approaches, namely: cognitive, behavioural, psychodynamic and person-centered as well as the skill to work within these realms.
Coaching at this end of the continuum requires the coach to support the coachee by creating a level of understanding that facilitates the leader’s levels of consciousness, identity and self belief. In this way they can move closer towards increasing their authenticity.
If we slowly zoom out and move along the continuum we enter the domain of the manager coach. This leads to a lessening of the depth and complexity of the coaching conversation with a shorter term focus on enhancing
personal performance without detracting from trust, honesty
and mutual respect.
These latter elements are fundamental, no matter at what point on the coaching continuum we choose to zoom in on.
Whether it is an internal or external coach, they are ultimately working to facilitate and support the coachee in relation to personal change and enhanced performance. Manager coaches may require significant support to enable them to comprehend and make the shift from ‘telling’ to ‘facilitating’. Fundamentally, the philosophy of the coach should demonstrate that ‘the answers lie within’ the coachee. The coach must view themselves as a facilitator releasing untapped potential in others.
The fundamental difference between coaching and mentoring can be articulated in relation to mentoring being an ‘advisory’ relationship and coaching being a ‘facilitative’ one. Like coaching, mentoring is also offered to support and accelerate employee performance. However, the mentor is usually a more senior employee whose modus operandi is to share their wisdom, experience, knowledge and act as a sponsor, representing the mentee in relevant circumstances and forums. It is essential to identify the learning goals at the start of the relationship to prevent the relationship from meandering and losing focus. As in the coaching relationship, mutual respect and trust are ‘must haves’ to ensure the commitment, energy and momentum within the relationship can be sustained.
The mentor should not seek to create a ‘clone’ of themself but to recognise the individual in their own terms. Ultimately, both coaching and mentoring enable journeys of personal change and development. The personal journeys, however, are significantly different.
Coaching focuses upon enabling the coachee to identify their current position, plot their route and thereafter facilitate their journey and review the distance travelled. The mentor provides a safe passage through the organisational waters, highlighting the necessary coordinates and likely obstacles along the route.
