What does Mentoring add?
When you’re leading change – whether it’s your job title, or a role of personal influence – you may find yourself following a vision that others do not yet grasp. Your leadership puts you out ahead of the group, beckoning them to follow and try something new … but it can also leave you frustrated, wondering if anyone is actually following.
As an experienced leader of change, I know that feeling. And I’d love to support you with feedback, as a sounding board, and with tales from my own experience. I love to share tips, and make connections to resources. As a mentor, I can do this. But when coaching, I limit this sharing, to keep the focus on your own deep explorations. I think of coaching as “teaching you to fish” – but a mentor gets in the boat and hauls nets with you!
Why bother with the distinction between Coaching and Mentoring?
Mixing coaching and mentoring without a plan can be confusing to both of us: who’s the expert in a given conversation? As a mentor, I come in with my experience, expertise and advice. But in coaching, you are the expert in your own life, and I mainly leave my advice aside, to more clearly hear and work with your emerging agenda.
With an agreed-upon mentoring model, we create an explicit shared agenda and a living set of goals, a set of external guidelines that inspire you. Then I can “switch hats” to offer perspectives and resources as a mentor, where I know you want them, and to coach you to find outside resources, in areas where I am less experienced.