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Your relationship skills, your coaching and
mentoring will last longer than your words.
People will remember your honesty and integrity ... or lack of it.
Short-term Coaching & Long-term Mentorship
We apply systemic solutions to short-term goals or
long-term projects depending on a person's desires and needs. Short-term coaching
can define and plan specific goals, while long-term mentorship helps people
who want lives that have meaning and integrity.
Short-term coaching and long-term mentorship overlap. Both coaching
and mentorship helps people develop. Both coaches and mentors are
approachable and available. Both coaching and mentorship
can be applied to most fields of human abilities and excellence.
Emotional Maturity .
Emotional Reality .
Emotional Intelligence
. Emotional Baggage
Coaching is not mentoring although a coach might also be a
mentor and either may be a role model. Building and maintaining these
relationships require different personal qualities and relationship
skills. Longer, deeper relationships increase bonding, and risk
entanglement and mentor damage.
| Short-Term |
Long-Term |
Role
Model |
| You assist people to clarify
and achieve specific goals within specified times. You are expert
in goal definition and resolving emotional blocks to success. |
You guide people to fulfill
some part of their lives. You are expert in the mentored topic or you are
expert in helping people develop skills, attitudes and relationships. |
You are a useful model for behaviors
or skills which someone wants to emulate or replicate. |
While most of us are specialists in helping people resolve
relationship entanglements and emotional blocks, we may also act as advisers, role models, advocates,
guides, listeners, provocateurs, visionaries and facilitators.
Accelerated Learning .
Mentors & Mentorship .
Expert Modeling
Coaching, Mentorship & Role Models
Those who want to improve or develop often seek people
who offer appropriate guidance and/or support. Coaching is often
described as helping people clarify their goals and develop strategies
toward achieving those goals. As a coach, you can share your professional
skills.
Mentorship can be described as the influence, guidance or
direction exerted by a trusted and experienced guide. A mentor may refer to
an experienced leader or manager who helps less experienced people develop their
capabilities.
You may be chosen as a role-model for skills and behavior.
Role models may be living or dead, or even imaginary. If you are chosen as
a role model - your actions may be copied and replicated. Even your refusal
to cooperate may be modeled and replicated.
What is a Mentor Relationship?
The original Mentor was described by an ancient Greek writer as
Odysseus' wise and trusted counselor. Mentor was responsible for Odysseus' estate
and his son's education. At your best, you will inspire
people to create visions that provide sense or purpose in life. A mentor role
will challenge your maturity, expertise and relationship skills. Effective mentors
encourage a profound affirmation of life. Ineffective mentors can seriously
damage people.
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"Mentors are
advisors, people with experience willing to share their
knowledge; supporters, people who give emotional and moral
encouragement; tutors, people who give specific feedback on one's
performance; masters, in the sense of employers to whom one is
apprenticed; sponsors, sources of information about and aid in obtaining
opportunities; models of identity, of the kind of person one should be ..."
Morris Zelditch
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Effective mentors build mutual respect,
trust, clarity and empathy. They share your experience, wisdom and expertise.
They are good
listeners, observers and problem-solvers. They try to understand and respect a
person's goals and interests. They create space in which people can develop.
Different people require different attention, information
and encouragement. People may not know what questions to ask, what information they
need, or what options are possible. As a mentor, you may answer questions and
challenge people to develop critical thinking, self-discipline and good habits.
Effective Mentoring
Are you a good listener? Can you hear what a person is
saying without interpreting or judging? Do you pay attention to hidden
agendas shown by body language? When you think you have understood a point,
do you check whether you have understood correctly? Convey empathy
and understanding.
Arrange regular meetings and try to anticipate problems.
Assume that people who need help may not ask for assistance. Even people
who are progressing well need occasional serious conversations.
Discuss ethical issues and integrity to help people
prepare for ethical questions that arise. Discuss potential conflicts
of interest and help people understand misconduct: What would you do
if asked to do something immoral or illegal? What would you do if your
friend, colleague or boss acts unethically?
Appreciate Diversity
If you mentor people from a different cultural
background to your own, try to understand each person as a unique
individual. Mentoring people from other cultures can help you broaden your
horizon. If you welcome ethnic, sexual and cultural diversity,
you strongly and positively affect their development.
If you are puzzled or irritated by a person,
check yourself for irritating habits,
transferences,
cultural biases or ethnocentrism.
Family Issues, Disability & Intimacy
Sometimes people need extra support, such as when having
a baby, raising children alone,
caring for a parent, suffering marital problems, or juggling a two-career
partnership. You might refer people to a systemic
coach, or other professionals. Help people find assistance for mental or physical
disabilities.
If you mentor people to whom you feel attracted, avoid any
appearance of romantic interest or sexual harassment. Inappropriate intimacy
may result in unpleasant ethical and legal consequences. Avoid misunderstandings
with common sense and clear communication.
Mentor & Therapy Damage
Not all people want to be mentors, and many people
who proclaim themselves as mentors lack even the most basic mentorship
skills. Inappropriate mentorship can seriously hurt those people
being mentored. Mentor damage is common.
People damaged by inappropriate mentors may avoid further
mentorship - by anybody. They have been hurt and they may assume that further
mentorship will produce further hurt. The consequences of
mentor damage are similar to
spiritual abuse - and
can be remedied during systemic coaching.
Mentorship Phases
Mentor relationships tend to be deep and long-term. If a person
needs short-term relationship coaching, success
planning, rapid skill acquisition or
accelerated learning - arrange systemic coaching, which is unlikely to result in
emotional bonding and subsequent painful separation.
Mentors may experience unexpected problems and
unpleasant emotions as the relationship evolves. Mentorship follows four
general phases: initiation, cultivation, independence &
redefinition (Kram 1985)
| Phase |
Time |
Activity |
| 1 |
6-12 months |
A new mentor relationship becomes
important to both mentor and mentored. Both create expectations and
perhaps transferences and entanglements. (The most common mentorship
entanglement is parent-child). |
| 2 |
2 - 5 years |
Both mentor and mentored test their
expectations from the first phase. Both can explore the value of
their relationship and clarify boundaries. |
| 3 |
6 - 24 months |
As the need for mentorship fades, one or both may
experience confusion and loss.
Another mentor can be a resource or a liability during this time. |
| 4 |
Later |
One or both recognize that a mentor
relationship is no longer appropriate. They may become
friendly peers, resentful competitors or ignore each other. |
A mentor relationship can begin with creating trust and
connection through careful questions and active listening. Without this
foundation, the likelihood of a meaningful mentor relationship is low.
Instead, a guru-devotee relationship may begin, at high cost to
both people.
Inappropriate bonding can lead to emotional distress.
If a mentor relates to people as substitutes for friends, children or a
partner, or if a mentor is perceived as a substitute
parent or older sibling, separation may be painful. If such
transferences spontaneously dissolve during mentorship, one or both may
experience unpleasant emotions and resent or avoid the other.
A role as a mentor may include building relationships,
providing information, facilitating and challenging, and perhaps serving
as a role model while inspiring people to create and achieve worthwhile goals. A
good mentor can inspire people to develop personally and professionally.
Do you want to dissolve emotional and relationship issues?
Do you want to build success and
quality relationships?
Online Coaching & Mentorship
Plagiarism is theft. Copyright © Martyn Carruthers 2003-2011 All rights reserved. |
