Leary’s rose is a simple tool for helping clients understand the dynamics of relationships. The rose is built around two dimensions: Dominance v Submission, and Hostility v Togetherness. Our responses to other people’s stances are either symmetrical (hostility provokes hostility; togetherness stimulates togetherness); or complementary (dominance provokes submission, submission provokes dominance). In a work environment,...
One of the most common problems that holds talented people back is their tendency to micromanage. Usually driven by insecurity, micromanagement is bad news for the individual and for their team. For the individual, it means that they never have enough time to do things that are important not urgent, nor to focus on longer-term (more…)
In theory, the boss should be delighted that someone else is sharing the responsibility for helping one of their direct reports to manage their career self-management and personal development. In practice, they may have reservations about how much time away from the job will be involved, what mentor and mentee will say about him or...
These three concepts from psychotherapy and counselling are useful for the coach or mentor to have at the back of their mind, particularly when addressing behavioural or motivational issues. Transference happens when we unconsciously and irrationally attribute attitudes, motivations or other characteristics to someone else, because we create an association between them and someone in...
It often happens that people bring goals to coaching and mentoring, which they feel obliged to accept. Because these goals are externally generated (for example, from the expectations of their line manager, or their spouse), their commitment is likely to be much lower than if the goal were generated internally, meeting their own needs. So...
One of the recognised dangers of executive coaching / mentoring, however it is sourced, is that the coachee / mentee can come to depend on the coach / mentor to do their thinking for them, rather than develop the skills and habits of thinking for themselves. Dependency can take many forms, including intellectual (solving problems...
If you are not able to join a mentoring programme in your own organisation or profession, you can still find a mentor informally. The starting point is to think through what you want a mentor for. Once you are clear about this, you can move on to thinking about what sort of person would make...
In essence, all coaching and mentoring are about helping people achieve change. When change is incremental, planned and about progress towards a desirable objective, and the coachee/ mentee feels reasonably in control and not under threat, then coaching or mentoring task is relatively straightforward. But when change is unexpected, threatening or involves significant perceived loss,...
Identifying strengths is just the first part of a strengths-based approach to personal development. There are numerous self-completion questionnaires to help with the process, but these should come with a health warning – you have to have a relatively high level of self-awareness and emotional intelligence to see yourself accurately. More effective is to add...
Building rapport is the first step in creating a successful relationship. Investing time in the early meetings to get to know each other, establish common ground, share personal stories and start to think how you will work together is time well spent. Establishing rapport is essential in, for example, mentoring coaching relationships, because it allows...
