What is Mentoring?

Mentoring is a two-way learning relationship, which is concerned with developing and unlocking the potential of the mentee, but also provides learning and development for the mentor. It supports the mentee in determining which goals to pursue and why. It seeks to build wisdom – the ability to apply skills, knowledge and experience in new situations and to new problems. It provides a sounding board, where the mentee can explore alternative approaches.

Mentors can be role models to their mentees, peers or even individuals in more junior positions, where “reverse mentoring” relationships can be designed to inform more senior executives in a mentee capacity.

Mentoring is an off-line relationship, so a line manager would not mentor his direct reports.

Benefits of Mentoring

Developing Individuals through Mentoring

BalanceMentoring has been around since the Odyssey. Most people are familiar with the tale of Odysseus returning from the Trojan Wars to find that his old friend Mentor had supported his son Telemachus, during his long absence. However, are you also aware than Mentor was actually the Goddess Aphrodite in the guise of Mentor? So the first mentor was actually female!

Early Mentoring

Formal mentoring became most visible with the Big Brothers/Big Sisters programme in New York in the 1920s and mentoring soon became an important part of the US corporate development scene. In the 1980s and 1990s it became more popular in the UK with the Labour Government using it extensively post 1997 as a tool to deal with “remedial” school children, unfortunately not a move which endeared it to all the parents at the time. Up to three or four years ago, mentoring programmes were flourishing in many private and public sector organisations as well as being used extensively in educational institutions and associations. With the rise in popularity of coaching, mentoring took more of a back seat with energy being put into coaching in the line, internal coach and executive coaching initiatives, mentoring becoming more of the poor relation and coaching gaining more interest, particularly in the corporate arena.

Modern Day Mentoring

Mentoring is now more popular in this new era of constant turmoil in a recession sensitive economy. With some people it never went out of flavour, but there is an enormous surge of interest in using mentoring in organisations, particularly around talent development and supporting women. The cost effectiveness of setting up a programme versus bringing in external coaching support is a no brainer and learning and development professionals realise this.

These groups of employees might benefit from being part of a “formal” mentoring programme:

But basically everyone can benefit from a mentor!

Is Mentoring the same as Coaching?

Biscuit BasinCoaching is concerned primarily with performance and the development of more tangible skills. It usually starts with the learning goal already identified, if not by the individual, then by their line manager. Mentoring tends to be more holistic and about supporting the individual in opening up their potential and capability.

Research by Willis (2005) into mentoring and coaching standards undertaken by the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) suggests that in practice there is much common ground between mentoring and coaching. Garvey, Stokes and Megginson (2009) when comparing mentoring with coaching found that mentoring activity is found in all sectors of society and includes both paid and voluntary activities. It is also associated with ‘off line’ partnerships. Coach Mentoring Ltd defines mentoring as an off line developmental dialogue with mutual benefits, but acknowledges many of the similarities with coaching.

However, there is an enormous overlap and at Coach Mentoring Ltd, we like to work with the client to encourage and educate them in how they define coaching and mentoring in their unique organizational context and culture. Please contact us to see how we can help you with your mentoring.

Contact Coach Mentoring to see how we can help you with mentoring.