The level of confidentiality in coaching depends on who the coach is. Where the coach is an external professional or an internal person from another part of the organisation (ie “out-of-the-line”), the same principles apply generally as with mentoring. Where the coach is a peer in the same team or the coachee’s line manager, the (more…)
Sending line managers on courses to learn how to coach doesn’t have a strong track record of working. One of the reasons is that “it takes two to tango” – effective coaching is something you do with other people, not to them. You can engage your team with the coaching process by: Exploring with them (more…)
Being an effective coach to your team (or outside your team) has many proven benefits, in terms of performance, engagement, creativity and retention of colleagues. Three things in particular appear to make an effective everyday coach. These are: Mindset – how your approach your role as a coach Skills – your understanding of coaching behaviours (more…)
Nobody observes how you work and behave better than your team. Research shows that teams have a much more accurate perception of their boss’ leadership strengths and weaknesses than their boss does of theirs. So your team can be a valuable resource for your self-development – if you permit them. If you want to use (more…)
When a direct report has a mentor, they will need support and encouragement from their line manager. Practical ways, in which you can help, include: Being generous with the time you allow them to take for meetings with their mentor. You would normally encourage them to attend relevant training programmes. Mentoring provides immediate, just-in-time development (more…)
Manager as talent spotter By and large, managers are not very good at spotting talent (unless it is someone like them!). However, if they are prepared to put aside stereotypes about what constitutes talent, they can play a vital role in retention, diversification and harnessing of talent. Effective talent spotters are on the look out (more…)
When a direct report has a mentor, they will need support and encouragement from their line manager. Practical ways, in which you can help, include: Being generous with the time you allow them to take for meetings with their mentor. You would normally encourage them to attend relevant training programmes. Mentoring provides immediate, just-in-time development (more…)
Because mentors are a scarce resource, it’s inevitable that not everyone can be part of a formal mentoring programme at the same time. So it’s important that people who are not selected remain positive about the programme and about their personal development. Here is an example of how you might communicate to potential mentees at (more…)
Mentee Mentor What is your need from mentoring? Help with a technical task Help with a new technical role Help in thinking through and following your career plan Help in developing management capabilities Help settling into or preparing for a new management role What kind of mentoring can you offer? Help with a technical task (more…)
Mentor and mentee matching process The aim of this project is to establish a more reliable set of information, on which matches between mentors and mentees can be made. While a fully automatic process is theoretically possible, it is likely in the great majority of cases that programme managers will want to work with data (more…)