Mentoring and coaching

Mentoring and coaching can help the development of those being mentored or coached (mentee or coachee), and the mentor or coach themselves. It can be formal or informal, directive or non-directive, ongoing or ad hoc, depending on the situation. You can use the skills in many situations. Principal investigators (PIs) and researchers can be involved in mentoring or coaching in various ways:

• PI adopts a coaching approach to managing researchers
• researcher receives mentoring or coaching from someone not directly involved in their management or supervision (off-line)
• PI provides off-line mentoring to other researchers
• PI receives mentoring or coaching
• PI or researcher undertakes peer coaching or mentoring.

Benefits

There can be huge benefits to mentoring or coaching for researchers and you as PI including:

• increased motivation, productivity and performance
• improved interpersonal relationships, communication and networks
• more awareness of personal impact
• clearer idea of career path or goals
• better understanding of what is required in their role
• greater confidence
• easier integration into a new role, institution, culture, or country.

A mentoring or coaching relationship may boost the confidence of a researcher to write a paper, to contribute to writing a grant, or to present at a conference.  A commitment to action is central, giving researchers impetus and encouragement.

For the mentor and coach, benefits include:

• increased self-awareness
• increased learning from listening to others; prompting reflection and a change in behaviour
• reflective space
• a sense of satisfaction due to making a difference
• intellectual challenge
• improved skills eg listening and questioning
• learning by increased awareness of issues (other people's/organisational).

As PI in the position of manager or supervisor you can use mentoring and coaching skills directly, and you can use coaching skills to enhance the mentoring process.

Disadvantages

You should also be aware that mentoring or coaching could lead to some problems:

• the researcher may become dependent on the mentor or coach; in this case ground rules and boundaries at the outset can be helpful
• a time commitment is required - the researcher or mentor/coach may find they need to use their own time, or to forgo other activities.

Within this section, you will find an explanation of the differences between mentoring and coaching, formal and informal and directive and non-directive approaches, and the skills required of a mentor or coach.

What are mentoring and coaching?

Mentoring and coaching use many of the same skill set, such as active listening, questioning and supporting.  There are many, lengthy, and often not-very-helpful discussions of the differences. Broadly it would be viewed like this:

• mentoring is done by someone who is an expert in the mentee's field, they are less likely to have been trained and more likely to be directive
• coaching is done by someone who has been trained as a coach and is not an expert in the coachee's field, likely to be non-directive.

Definitions of mentoring include:

"off-line help by one person to another in making significant transitions in knowledge, work or thinking." (Clutterbuck & Megginson 1999)

"where a more experienced person helps another to enhance his/her performance, learning or development." (Thomson, 2006)

One definition of coaching is:

"a process that enables learning and development to occur and thus performance to improve. To be successful a Coach requires a knowledge and understanding of process as well as the variety of styles, skills and techniques that are appropriate to the context in which the coaching takes place." (Parsloe, 1999)

Modes of delivery

Mentoring or coaching can be undertaken through different media.  Face-to-face meetings are common; however the telephone, email and virtual meetings through the internet are also possible and effective.  This can be a particular advantage if the mentor and mentee are geographically remote.

Next steps

Here are some possible options for becoming involved in mentoring or coaching:

• investigate whether formal schemes exist at your institution
• encourage your researchers to become involved in mentoring or coaching
• help to identify possible mentors for your researchers
• volunteer as a mentor (eg within your institution or through your professional body)
• adopt a mentoring/coaching style of managing your researchers
• undertake training in mentoring and coaching skills.