CHAPTER 1

Mentoring and Coaching

The need for personal leadership in business is at an all-time high. Personalleadership is, in fact, the last frontier for long-term competitive advantage. Icontinue to believe that extreme personal leadership is the foundation forbuilding excellence. In this regard, enlightened corporations must strive toincorporate people development into their management gene structure. Therefore,people development must evolve as a core competency for all companies thatstrive to achieve the highest levels of performance and yield the highestreturns to their shareowners.

Managers must learn to view talent as a way of building the long-term value ofthe organization.

They have a responsibility to identify talent within the organization and turnit into a leadership competitive advantage for the company. Managers must committo investing time and resources in developing leadership during times ofprosperity or scarcity.

All personal leadership development programs should be comprehensive. Thereshould be a variety of approaches available to meet the varying needs of theemployees within the organization. Managers must identify how each individual isunique and help that individual develop in such a way as to achieve his or hermaximum capability while contributing to the success of the organization.

Coaching and Mentoring in Personal Development Programs

There are many tools available to help managers develop their high-performanceand high-potential employees. They may choose to construct in-house programs todevelop the needed skills or they may take advantage of university and industry-related training programs. While there are many options for managers toconsider, coaching and mentoring are indispensable and should always be includedin personal leadership development programs.

Coaching and mentoring are two powerful means of helping employees develop.While I emphasize the importance of both programs, coaching and mentoring arenot the same.

Researchers have described coaching and mentoring as continuous processes.Neither is a one-time event. Mentoring and coaching are intended to developindividual skills, resulting in improved performance and accelerating personaldevelopment. Because of the perceived value of mentoring and coaching programs,they have become a part of the workplace, providing organizations with theopportunity to increase job satisfaction, personnel productivity, and employmentstability within their organizations. In fact, with the increase of diversity inthe workplace and the accelerated changes in the work environment, mentoring andcoaching have become essential components for managers and leaders.

Both coaching and mentoring form a relationship that coaches and mentorsdescribe as a "partnership." However, mentoring and coaching are not the same.It is important for managers to understand the differences.

Differences Between Mentoring and Coaching

At a basic level, it seems easy enough to distinguish between coaching andmentoring:

* Coaching aims to improve performance on the job, in a specific area of skillsand knowledge.

* Mentoring aims to develop potential, helping an employee move beyond the job,toward career goals.

* Coaching tends to focus more specifically on present job responsibilities.

* Mentoring tends to focus more generally, to prepare for future jobresponsibilities.

* In coaching, there usually is a specified time frame for working with theemployee.

* In mentoring, the relationship is more likely to be for an indefinite time. Coaching typically consists of instruction, training, support, and timelyfeedback.

* Mentoring is based on education, experience, exposure, and inspiration.

One of the more important differences between mentoring and coaching is that thecoach helps the employee do his or her job better and the mentor helps theemployee make the transition to self-development and the ability to do otherjobs, to achieve goals beyond the present job situation. In short, a coach willhelp you do what you need to do, but a mentor will help you do what youwant to do.

Sometimes the term coach is used to mean executive coach,further blurring the basic distinction between coach and mentor. Thus, whencoaching is defined as "Partnering with clients in a thought-provoking andcreative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professionalpotential" (International Coaching Federation, Code of Ethics,www.coachfederation.org), we recognize it as executive coaching.

There are many books and articles that purport to define the differences betweenexecutive coaching and mentoring. Some of the research suggests that thedifferences are minimal and, as you would expect, other research suggests,rather strongly, that there are substantial differences between executivecoaching and mentoring.

Some of these differences are associated with personal behavior. Some expertssuggest that an executive coach will value behaviors that are more oftenassociated with mentoring than with coaching. Some claim the mentor bringscareer and business knowledge, while an executive coach is not burdened by theclutter and therefore will provide a more independent perspective.

Mentoring and coaching programs are designed to enhance the individual skillsthat result in improved performance and accelerate personal development. Becauseof the perceived value of mentoring and coaching programs, they have become apart of the everyday workplace. They provide organizations with the opportunityto increase job satisfaction, personnel productivity, and employment stabilitywithin their organizations.

Both coaching and mentoring are "relationship-based" and frequently defined byscholars as "intervention" measures. In the counseling profession, therelationship between the coach, or mentor, and the client is often defined asthe "therapeutic alliance." Coaches and mentors describe it as a "partnership."Nonetheless, whether it is characterized as an intervention, alliance, orpartnership, it is the foundation for achieving a successful conclusion to theeffort.

Further, coaching and mentoring differ in several other ways. Historically, onesignificant difference has been in the level of formality with both approaches.Coaching programs have been more formal than mentoring programs. However, withthe advent of professional mentoring and formal...