Mentoring
Mentoring can happen in several ways:
a) Observation
b) Question-and-Answer
c) Coaching
When you engage in observation based mentoring, another coach actually listens to you coach a client with a real problem and provides specific (usually written) feedback on your coaching. This process is usually complemented with a Q&A and coaching style mentoring and usually begins before mentoring even takes place. When you know another coach will be critically listening to you coach a client, you begin critically listening to yourself coach. The learning process begins here and is compounded by the actual observation process.
When you engage in question-and-answer based mentoring, you have a series of focused conversations about your coaching and coaching process. You might arrive at these sessions with a list of questions which your mentor answers directly or which you discuss together. You might also share some of your current coaching experiences and ask your mentor about their experiences with the same thing of for their advice on a coaching matter. This kind of mentoring is particularly useful when you get mentored by a coach who has been trained differently to you, or who has a different expertise. By asking them questions about how they actually do such things as questioning, listening, accountably or their complimentary sessions, or about their expertise, you can expand your coaching toolkit out of sight.
When you engage in coaching based mentoring, it is similar to coaching in that you come with an issue and seek solutions. However, in the case of the mentoring context, you come with an issue you are experiencing in your coaching process and utilise your mentor to coach you towards its resolve. It’s like applying the power of coaching to coaching itself!
We encourage coaches to be accountable as professionals by being mentored by another coach on a regular basis. Thanks to the global ReciproCoach Community, there is no reason why any coach in the world cannot have a mentor, whenever they want, wherever they want. Instead of paying costly mentoring fees, if you are a trained coach (or in training to become a coach), you can simply pay a small match-making fee and a professional match-maker will assign you a ReciproMentor and a ReciproMentee for a pre-determined number of sessions. By agreeing to mentor your ReciproMentee for a pre-determined number of sessions, you are entitled to receive the same number of sessions of mentoring from your ReciproMentor.
Click here to find out how the ReciproCoach Mentoring system actually works