What Is Coaching And Mentoring?

Coaching and mentoring use the same skills and approach but coaching is short term task-based and mentoring is a longer term relationship. 

Why coaching and mentoring? You will recognise that to survive and prosper in these tough times, your organisation has to be performing at the highest level of effectiveness.

This means leadership skills, decision-making, staff relations, creativity, stress and time management, meeting control or sensitive issue handling, has to be of the very highest order.

Executive coaching and mentoring can help you in all those vital areas and more, because it's all about the future ...

... discovering your hidden potential and achieving it – fast!

Brefi Group has enjoyed enormous success doing exactly this for leading organisations around the world for over two decades.

It consists of one-to-one developmental discussions.

It provides people with feedback on both their strengths and weaknesses.

It is aimed at specific issues/areas.

It is a relatively short-term activity, except in executive coaching, which tends to have a longer timeframe.

It is essentially a non-directive form of development.

It focuses on improving performance and developing/enhancing individuals skills.

It is used to address a wide range of issues.

Coaching activities have both organisational and individual goals.

It assumes that the individual is psychologically healthy and does not require a clinical intervention.

It works on the premise that clients are self-aware, or can achieve self-awareness.

It is time-bounded.

It is a skilled activity

Personal issues may be discussed but the emphasis is on performance on work.

This is how the International Coach Federation defines the basic coaching competencies:

• Meet ethical guidelines of the profession
• Ability to establish a coaching agreement
• Ability to establish an intimate and trusting relationship with the client
• Ability to be fully present, conscious and spontaneous
• Ability to express active listening
• Ability to ask powerful questions
• Ability to be a direct communicator
• Ability to create and raise the client's awareness
• Ability to design and create action plans and action behaviours
• Ability to develop plans and establish goals with the client
• Ability to manage the client's progress and hold him/her responsible for action

The core of coaching is building rapport, asking powerful questions and setting goals.

What is Executive Coaching?

Brefi Group provides corporate coaching, which is executive coaching undertaken within the context of an organisation's vision, mission, values – and strategy. By working within an organisation as well as with individuals, corporate coaching extracts the synergy that is greater than the sum of the parts.

The International Coach Federation has researched the qualities needed by an executive coach, such as:

• A firm grounding in business knowledge and competencies
• Thorough understanding of the world of the executive leader
• A broad understanding of leadership and leadership development
• Knowledge of systems dynamics (organisation and community)
• Knowledge of the framework of adult development
• High standards of personal and professional ethics
• Highly developed communication proficiency allowing us to operate in the executive's environment
• Advanced coaching skills and capabilities
• Stature and reputation that gains respect
• A commitment to lifelong learning similar to the leader him/herself

Coaching and mentoring processes

Individual and management development can take place in many forms, some delivered by managers and some by internal or external coaches, or mentors. Robert Dilts defines the different activities as follows: -

Guiding: the process of directing an individual or a group along the path leading from present state to a desired state

Coaching: helping another person to improve awareness, to set and achieve goals in order to improve a particular behavioural performance

Teaching: helping an individual or group develop cognitive skills and capabilities

Mentoring: helping to shape an individual’s beliefs and values in a positive way; often a longer term career relationship from someone who has ‘done it before’

Counselling: helping an individual to improve performance by resolving situations from the past.

Differences between mentoring and coaching & Counselling

The CIPD differentiates between coaching, mentoring and counselling. It is helpful to understand these differences as, although many of the processes are similar, they are generally delivered by individuals with different qualifications and different relationships with their client..

Counselling, is a highly skilled intervention focused on helping individuals address underlying psychological problems.