The Effective Mentor Coach. Competencies and Masteries Based Language. Part 3 of 4
Personally, the ICF Competencies and the IAC Masteries are the “bible” for my mentoring sessions. I grab them and hold on to them to save me from pretty much any situation. They have become my “come from” and “go-to” place, which I can always revert back to.
As a Mentor, these sources give me the precise language to navigate each mentoring session with ease and flow. They are the tools that allow me to better speak, interact, and engage with my mentees. When communicating with my mentees, they help me maintain consistency, focus, and clarity. Ultimately, they provide me with a clear path, allowing me to broaden my understanding of necessary skills so I can center each mentoring session on what is important and what I was hired to do.
I especially refer to these sources when I encounter situations that are out of the ordinary or when I encounter situations that provoke a strong reaction in me.
For example, if my mentee has a “style” of coaching that I don’t like or disagree with, then my mentoring gets obscured by the thoughts and ideas that I have regarding that style of coaching. This distracts me from the original job that I was hired to do. By using the language of the Competencies and/or Masteries, I’m able to bypass my reactions, thoughts, and beliefs that may affect my assessment of the mentee.
Or when my mentee sends me a coaching session that is not really coaching and I use the Competencies and/or Masteries language to tell them, with clear examples of the skills that a coach uses, what coaching is and is not.
As a mentor you need:
- To get very familiar with the words of the Competencies and Masteries
- To understand them and make them your own
- To use them when commenting about coaching
I’m grateful to the many coaches that set the foundation for our coaching profession and to those coaches who helped write and develop the Competencies and Masteries. When I mentor and use that language, I feel I help to expand what they started. This helps deepen the understanding of what it means to be a coach for myself and for my mentees.
In your next mentoring session have a copy of the Competencies and/or Masteries next to you to get more familiar with them. Use them as a reference guide and quote them in your mentoring session. Use the actual words whenever possible.
In the last part of this series, we’ll explore the “who” in mentoring in order to deepen our mentoring sessions.
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.
