Today’s post revisits the subject of how to coach a career counselee/mentee vs coaching a direct report.
The difference is in the focus, rather than the skills.
The skills – contracting, ethics, powerful questions, listening, trust, intimacy, and presence, direct communication, designing actions and planning and goal-setting, and managing progress and accountability – are exactly the same, no matter which context you are coaching in.
The focus, though, is defined by the expectation of a supervisor vs the expectation of a career counsellor/mentor.
Supervisors coach people on successful performance for today.
Career Counsellors coach our people on their careers for success tomorrow.
Performance Coaching conversations are tied to the current business goals. The coach is the supervisor, and uses a coach-approach to solicit a certain level of performance from the individual. This includes setting overall direction and giving feedback.
Career Coaching conversations are focused on helping the individual identify and achieve his/her career goals for the future in a non-directive way.
Sure, there is a cross-over, where the supervisor might sometimes do career coaching, and vice versa, but don’t get hung up on that. Just be clear which hat you are wearing.
Why do you (and they) need to understand which hat you are wearing? Because you don’t want performance concerns to get in the way when you are talking about career. If your supervisee thinks you will be annoyed if they tell you that they want to work in a different department, they will not tell you and you will not be able to help them. That is a missed opportunity.
You can see from that just how important trust is. Trust in letting you know when they have made mistakes or don’t know what to do next in their day-to-day job (as part of performance coaching); and trust that they can talk to you about their longer term aspirations (career coaching).
Some of you may have seen this table in a previous blog post, that defines the two types of coaching even more. I have now added the beliefs you need to make each “hat” effective. Remember that technique is never enough – intention is far more important; and having the right mind-set for coaching.
| Performance Coaching | Career Coaching | |
| Facilitated by | Supervisor | Career counsellor |
| Purpose | Drive business strategy into execution | Obtain career clarity |
| Focus | What’s your story this year, and how can I support you to get there? | What’s your longer-term career story, and how can I help you to get there? |
| Approach | Sets and holds people accountable to goals and behavior on-the-job | Asks powerful questions to tap individual’s vision, wisdom, & action in service of individual’s self-identified career goals |
| Beliefs of the coach, as a catalyst towards high performance delivered | Developing People Is our BusinessEmpowerment comes from within, and has more to do with self-motivation than with the acceptance of authority
Everyone has strengths which can be made stronger, and that their weaknesses can be compensated for to become irrelevant Failure leads to feedback and everyone should have the chance to learn from mistakes It is my job to remove barriers and obstacles so people can attain the level of greatness they are destined for |
Everyone is responsible for their own life choicesEveryone is looking for meaning in life
Everyone is more than capable of creating a better future Every life has a story made up of many elements, work, home, family, friends…. People act within bigger systems |
| Agenda owner | Supervisor is responsible for business performance; individual is responsible for personal performance | Both career counsellor and individual hold individual’s agenda |
| Frequency | Weekly or bi-weekly | Monthly |
| Intended outcome | High performance delivered | People are in engaging, meaningful roles |
Does that help? Do ask your clarification questions in the comments box. Or if you have more to add to the distinctions, go ahead and add those.
