Becoming a Coach and Mentor
Becoming a Coach
Coaching Principles
- Requires a relation, preferably longitudinal, which is built on trust
- Focus on future improvement of behaviors & outcomes
- Guide learners to self assess behaviors
- Premise is to foster resilience
- Create a safe & challenging environment
- Establish a mutual understanding of goals
RX to Coach Learners
- Rapport: Establish an Educational Alliance between learner and clinician
- Set Expectations: discuss goals & assure alignment with learners' development trajectory
- Gather Data: directly or indirectly & use to guide improvement
- Coach/Feedback: begins with self-assessment - focus is on goals & requires a two-way dialogue
- Summarize the Encounter: clarify direction for self improvement
Use the Grow Model to Guide Your Coaching
- G - Establish the Goal
- R - Examine the Current Reality
- O - Explore Options/Obstacles
- W - Establish the Will to Improve
Becoming a Mentor
I. Reiterate the Importance of Mentoring
Learning is the fundamental process and the primary purpose of mentoring.
II. Review Characteristics of an Effective Mentor
- an exemplary role model
- skilled in questioning
- recognizes mentee as individuals
- assures a supportive environment for learning
- observes mentee’s performance
- comfortable with ignorance
- assesses learning needs
- liberal with feedback
- exhibits patience
- wise and faithful counselor
- possesses interactive charisma
- stretches the mind of the mentee
- has experience
- shows empathy
- listens
- sets a good personal and professional example
III. Remind yourself of the Do’s and Don’ts of Mentoring
Do
- advise
- mentor
- suggest
- nurture
- watch
- relax, be yourself
- encourage
Do Not
- direct
- mother
- choose
- smother
- act
- distance yourself
- disparage
IV. Practice Mentoring Skills
Practice Mentoring Skills (Zachary, L. (2000). The mentor’s guide. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass)
- Brokering relationships: Brokering relationships means skillfully making the right contacts and laying the groundwork for mentees to connect with other people who can be resources to them.
- Building and maintaining relationships: The processes of building and maintaining relationships require tending, patience over time, and persistence.
- Coaching: Coaching within the context of a mentoring relationship has to do with the skill of helping an individual fill a particular knowledge gap by learning how to do things more effectively.
- Communicating: Effective communication is critical to successful mentoring, just as it is in any other relationship.
- Encouraging: Encouraging can encompass cheerleading, confidence building, gently pushing at the right time and in an appropriate manner, motivating, and inspiring.
- Facilitating: Facilitating is the means by which mentors enable learning.
- Goal Setting: Skill in being able to assist a mentee in crystallizing, clarifying, and setting realistic goals is essential.
- Guiding: Mentors are guides – they clear a path and prepare the mentee for what it is they are about to see and learn.
- Managing Conflict: Managing conflict involves managing a conversation about differing points of view.
- Problem Solving: Problem solving means engaging the learner in the solution of the problem.
- Providing and Receiving Feedback: Feedback is an enabling mechanism throughout the mentoring relationship.
- Reflecting: Reflection is a significant tool for facilitating the growth and development of mentee and mentor.
V. Change Your Old Mentoring Paradigm to the Learner-Centered Mentoring Paradigm
| Mentoring Element | Changing Paradigm | Adult Learning Principle |
|---|---|---|
| Mentee role | From: Passive receiver To: Active partner | Adults learn best when they are involved in diagnosing, planning, implementing, and evaluating their own learning. |
| Mentor role | From: Authority To: Facilitator | The role of the facilitator is to create and maintain a supportive climate that promotes the conditions necessary for learning to take place. |
| Learning process | From: Mentor directed and responsible for mentee’s learning To: Self-directed and mentee responsible for own learning | Adults have a need to be self-directing |
| Length of relationship | From: Calendar focus To: Goal determined | Readiness for learning increases when there is a specific need to know. |
| Mentoring relationship | From: One life = one mentor; one mentor = one mentee To: Multiple mentors over a lifetime and multiple models for mentoring: individual, group, peer models | Life’s reservoir of experience is a primary learning resource; the life experiences of others add enrichment to the learning process. |
| Setting | From: Face-to-face To: Multiple and varied venues and opportunities | Adult learners have an inherent need for immediacy of application. |
| Focus | From: Product oriented: knowledge transfer and acquisition To: Process-oriented: critical reflection and application | Adults respond best to learning when they are internally motivated to learn. |
References
Zachary, L. (2000). The mentor’s guide. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.