The Effective Mentor Coach. What is a Mentor Coach? Part 1 of 4
‘Being’ a Mentor means you have chosen responsibilities—that of leadership, role model, expertise, guidance, and partnership.
In this four-part series, we’ll explore three of the aspects that it takes to be an effective Mentor Coach: the language that an effective Mentor uses, the focus for each session and the “who” in the mentoring sessions.
This series endeavors to give you a few tools that would support you in deepening your mentoring sessions with your mentees.
Ideally, we want to help the mentee evolve to a higher level of coaching so that he or she can have a better and deeper understanding of the competencies and masteries involved in coaching and ultimately, a clearer understanding of how to use them.
For that purpose, we must remain “neutral” in regards to the mentee’s coaching. We need to adapt to them and “be” with him or her. Of course, each mentee needs something different. This is why as Mentors, we need to show up in a myriad of ways.
As Mentors, we cannot let our own ideas, styles, and beliefs regarding what an “ideal” coaching session looks like, take over and direct our mentoring sessions.
Instead, we must cater to each session with each mentee.
- To focus on what each mentee needs to improve his or her coaching skills.
- To concentrate on what each mentee needs in order to “be” the best coach for their clients.
In other words, we need to give attention to the mentees coaching skills and not get caught up in our own coaching styles.
Thankfully, we have the competencies and masteries which will help us provide what each mentee needs from us.
In addition, I believe, we need to touch the “who” of the mentee. This is something that most mentors don’t talk about or are afraid to touch. In my experience, to be an Effective Mentor Coach you need to access the “who” and use some time in the mentoring sessions to inquire and/or explore.
The most profound changes happen when we help to change the person that is coaching.
To begin this process I want you to write down the thoughts that you have about coaching and about a coach. About the competencies/masteries. About how they should look like in a coaching session. About how a coach should be in a coaching session. All the ideas and beliefs that you have about coaching. Take them out of your head and put them into a piece of paper. And in your next mentoring session take that piece of paper and leave outside of the session. On another table or outside the room.
In our second part, we’ll start by exploring the focus of each mentoring session.
About the Author:
Eduardo Vier, MCC, is the instructor for Impact Coaching Academy`s ‘Masterful Mentor Coach’ training course, which prepares ICF certified coaches to effectively and competently mentor coaches who aspire to ICF certification at all levels (ACC, PCC, and MCC). For details of this course go to Impact Coach Academy, Mentor Coaching
The Expert Series is brought to you by choice Magazine as part of our ongoing efforts to bring opportunities for learning and growth to the coaching community. Delivered in four parts every two weeks, each series covers useful topics for business development and coaching insights, serving the needs of leaders in all areas and walks of life. Archived copies of the previous series can be found here.
