Q: What is the difference between coaching and mentoring?
A: Coaching is primarily about addressing/improving job performance to achieve outcomes through the development of specific skills. Often in the process, workplace roadblocks are identified and resolved. Executive coaches provide the tools to recognize conflict flashpoints, resolve issues and create an enhanced working environment for leaders and their staff.
Mentoring, more broadly based and intuitive, focuses on the development of capabilities and could include guidance for establishing a viable career path.
Mentoring is often done by a senior professional within the firm of the employee who is being mentored. It focuses on developing capability and includes, for example, helping someone establish a viable career plan.
Q: What makes for an optimum coaching/client relationship?
A: An effective coach anticipates and recognizes the client’s needs and interests and customizes the approach accordingly by establishing a climate of trust, empathy and understanding. Rather than just providing the answers, successful coaches emphasize personal awareness by helping clients recognize their strengths and create their own learning needs and behavioral changes while both coach and client uncover stumbling blocks to success.
Q: How do individual coaching and team effectiveness work differ?
A: Team coaching involves simultaneous individual and group focus. Each member of the group must be addressed with an emphasis on the interaction of all members. The objective is to foster understanding and create positive relationships leading to an improved, productive team effort and more rewarding personal interaction and communication.
Q: Should coaches tell clients what to do?
A: Although it may seem that telling clients what to do is the right thing to do at times, the goal of most coaching is to assist clients to become more confident in their own ability to make decisions by assuming responsibility for their own feelings, emotions and actions. Certainly coaches can advocate for consideration of certain courses of action, however the client should demonstrate free and informed choice in their behaviors.
Q; What is the difference between male and females coaches ?
A: Research has suggested that women can be more empathic than men however this has not been my experience. There are other relevant differences to consider such as coaches who have actual business experience as opposed to those who have not.
Q: Do good coaches only ask questions?
A: Effective coaches recognize the best approach is interactive and know when to share, demonstrate, suggest, advocate and test ideas as well as when to inquire and test by questioning. The methodology depends on the learner’s need at the time. Coaches who only ask questions could limit their sphere of influence.
Q: How long should a coaching session last?
A: Informal, ad-hoc coaching, usually done internally within a corporation, can take just a few minutes and could occur anywhere — in a hallway, elevator or cafeteria. Formal coaching, with a clear agenda and deeper discussion of relevant issues, usually takes a minimum of 45 minutes and sometimes as long as 90 minutes.
Q: What’s the responsibility of the coachee?
A: Clients get the best out of the relationship when they prepare for formal coaching sessions. In particular, they should be clear about what their learning needs are and what thinking they have already done around it. Some coachees take notes of key learning points realizing that review and reinforcement of new insights and behaviors can be very helpful.
Q. Who makes the best coach?
A: Many experts make ineffective coaches because they are unable to empathize with the client’s problems. Good coaches have the insight and patience to help other people develop their own route to learning. They also must be good at identifying and resolving intra-psychic, interpersonal and inter-organizational roadblocks.
Q: Is there a difference between sports coaching and coaching in business?
A: Yes. Sports coaching focuses on physical skills and mental attitude. Business coaching focuses on a mixture of technical and behavioral skills as well as mental attitudes. Both, however, have improved performance and outcomes as their goal.
Q: Can you really coach a team?
A: Yes, but to succeed you also need to coach the individuals at the same time. Team coaching focuses on the interaction between people. The coach acts to foster instinctive understanding and a positive attitude between members so their efforts can be better co-ordinated, aligned and efficient.
Q: Do line managers have to be coaches?
A: Coaching is one of the core skills of a line manager. Truly effective team leaders concentrate less on coaching themselves than creating an environment where coaching behaviors occur naturally between members of the team.
Q: Is there a difference between internal and external coaches?
A: When the internal coach is also the line manager, coaching is often regarded as a means of increasing motivation and or problem-solving within the team. External coaches typically have a shorter-term involvement, focusing on specific areas of development, performance, management or transitional issues.