Coaching & Mentoring - A Guide for a Better Path

By: WE STAFF | Friday, 6 November 2020

There are various study regarding Indian women in corporate industries, which concludes that the major barriers for their advancement to corporate leadership included the lack of mentoring of women and an inhospitable corporate culture. Very often women break into senior management, but are unable to reach the very top because of mindsets within the company that consider critical leadership positions best suited for men; instead, women get moved to functions like HRD or administration that are often thought of as support functions. Here’s where a coach or a mentor can be very useful. A mentor at the top management level who recognizes an employee’s potential can give them opportunities to prove herself and recommend her for critical positions when they open. A coach can help them realize their inner potential, which can further result in the skills improvement and development in an individual, leading them to land into the leadership role. Thus, mentoring and coaching women can play a crucial role in enhancing their career, especially in a largely male-dominated world, where women are always fighting to break the glass ceiling. However, mentoring and coaching are both different and a woman must understand its importance to leverage the most out of it.

In the current era, terms like coaching and mentoring have become a buzzword. These words can be seen associated with almost every industry including the educational realm, corporate world and also in the wellness space, to name a few. It is also seen that many people think that the two words are just the synonyms of each other, but to be fair, if you are one of them, then you have commonly muddled up the concept like many others. Don’t worry, in this article, we will help you with explaining this topic.

Usually, people get confused with four different words that are coaching, mentoring, training, and counselling. Whether it is coaching, mentoring, training, or counselling, they are merely different leadership approaches. All of them advocate one common objective, which is the improvement of an individuals’ performance. It’s more like different folks, different strokes. However, we will talk about coaching and mentoring.

Coaching

Coaching is a process that aims to improve performance and focuses on the ‘here and now’ rather than on the distant past or future. There is a huge difference between teaching someone and helping them to learn. In coaching, fundamentally, the coach is helping the individual to improve their own performance: in other words, helping them to learn. In corporate’s perspective coaching is partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.

The coach is not a subject expert but rather is focused on helping the individual to unlock their own potential. The focus is very much on the individual and what is inside their head. A coach is not necessarily a designated individual: anyone can take a coaching approach with others, whether peers, subordinates or superiors.

There are some specific values associated with coaching as well, which are: Coaching is a short-term activity. It is formal & structured in nature, and the methods are performance-driven. The approach includes helping individuals or groups to discover their inner potential and take ownership to achieve the desired goal.

Mentoring

Coaches, trainers, and consultants can all help you learn and grow in the space according to your requirement. But, mentoring is a unique combination of all of these. Mentoring is an advisory activity where a more experienced person takes someone less knowledgeable under their wing and grooms them in their chosen profession. Mentors are someone who hand-holds you to make sure that the advice they give you is actioned successfully. Mentors give advice based on their personal and professional expertise. Meeting agendas are typically mentee generated, as well as development based questions. The mentee will benefit from the relationship by choosing to follow the mentor’s path toward development. A mentoring relationship usually focuses on the future, personal and professional development, and broadening an individual’s horizons.

In the corporate world mentors typically work with developing coworkers. Companies often assign mentor relationships, but they can also develop spontaneously. The role can also often be labelled as an adviser. In most cases, experienced professionals who have seniority are paired with developing professionals.

There are some specific values associated with mentoring, such as mentoring is a long-term activity. It is informal in nature, and the methods are development-driven. The approach includes the transfer of formal and tacit knowledge, skills, best practices, experience, wisdom and mindset.

Conclusion

Any woman who broke the stereotypes and overcame biases can inspire others to follow in her footsteps. Shahnaz Husain, the Founder & Managing Director of The Shahnaz Husain Group of Companies recounts how the country's first woman Prime Minister Smt. Indira Gandhi motivated and encouraged her to take Ayurveda to an international platform. Not just Shahnaz but there are many women leaders today who got inspired, coached or mentored by someone and achieved the level of success that made them an icon for many. One of the biggest deterrents in a woman's career is self-doubt; the fear of not being able to do the balancing act. Seeing other women carry both their personal and professional responsibilities with elan helps burst this bubble of self-doubt. Hence, through this article, we hope that our women readers would get some idea about choosing the appropriate one between coaching and mentoring, which can further help them to develop themselves and help them achieve their dreams.