Techniques for Coaching and Mentoring

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Unconscious biases are the mental shortcuts that we learn over our lifetime to help us navigate the world. Unfortunately, these biases can have substantial implications when it comes to decision making in leadership. Additionally, you should frequently provide constructive criticism by praising their efforts when they are successful, recognizing their accomplishments, and highlighting their qualities. Finally, mentoring is mainly development driven and looks to the mentee to decide what they wish to achieve and which goals they have for their mentoring relationships. Both mentoring and coaching provide valuable opportunities for skill development, professional growth, and performance improvement.

Dedicated long-term time commitment whilst not potentially considered a ‘skill’ is important because if you start a mentoring journey with someone, it’s vital to see it through. Once these thoughts are shared, you’ll gain invaluable information that will take your coaching and mentoring to the next level. When they write their journal entries using coaching software , they always have it at hand via laptop or smartphone.Coaches and mentors must be able to "place themselves in that person's shoes," or to detect (or intuit) an individual's mental condition. This will assist you in developing solutions that are appropriate for them or in recognizing limiting beliefs or other impediments to their growth, some of which they may not be aware of. Celebrate accomplishments. On balance, they may be small. But every accomplishment represents a step forward. And each one is worth celebrating to build an employee's self-confidence.

The International Coach Federation (2019) lists active listening as one of the core competencies of coaching and defines it as the:

First, they have respect for those whose learning they support: they treat them as individuals, and work to help them achieve their aims and objectives. The Wheel of Life is a great tool to identify which areas and domains of our client’s life might be out of balance. Usually, the Wheel of Life consists of 6-8 categories or areas crucial for a happy life. You may elicit someone's thoughts and opinions, direct their attention toward coming up with a fresh idea or solution, and give them the confidence to feel like a change agent by using effective questioning techniques. To guide or facilitate the coachee's problem-solving and thought processes rather than providing them with solutions, coaches often use the questioning technique.

The perfect day exercise is a foundational life coaching technique that is intended to provide clarity about what the coachee wants out of life. For those seeking more clarity in terms of their career path, this exercise can be used to determine what one values and prioritizes in their work life. Typically, coaching is structured by line-managers or sponsors, so organisations will often sponsor an individual to be coached or a line-manager will send an employee to be coached for certain skills.

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HR and L&D teams have a central role to play in designing and managing coaching and mentoring programmes within an organisation. The quality of coaching and its results depend on identifying appropriate performance gaps, choosing appropriate coaches and mentors, managing relationships and evaluating success. Leadership requires a balance of criticism and praise. If your conversations with employees are always focused on what’s not working and what they have to improve, it can be very demotivating.