Mentor Coaching: A Practical Guide

There are so many people out there who call themselves coaches, who have had little to no training – and are probably not coaching anyway. That dilutes the value that trained coaches bring to the world, as noted in the 2016 research by the ICF which found that the “main concern expressed by coach practitioners was untrained individuals who call themselves coaches”.

The value that trained coaches bring is in the “joint endeavour to discover new thinking that moves the thinker forward” (Norman, 2019). Coaching “is intended to foster the on-going self-directed learning and personal growth of the coachee” (Grant, 1999) and according to ICF and Human Capital Institute research in 2018, the “use of professional coaching practitioners is considered among the most helpful activities in achieving the goals of a change management initiative.”

I notice that some coaches hold onto the belief that the value they bring to their thinkers is in the ideas they give them, the solutions they offer, the benefit of their experience. This feels like a short-term fix and doesn’t necessarily lead to long-term sustainable change (Koroleva, 2016). I want to encourage coaches to be more non-directive, because I have seen how much of a difference this makes to people and their confidence in themselves. Parsloe and Wray (2000) state that performance is enhanced when “control and responsibility is transferred from the coach to the learner.”

I want to ensure that every coach partners with their thinker in a way that leads to better, new thinking for the world as a whole. I believe (per Marshall Rosenberg, 2015) that the more each person can articulate their own needs and make requests from those around them, the better the world will become. That may sound naïve but that’s what drives me as a coach and therefore as a mentor coach.