Mentoring, Coaching, and Counseling By Bill Hawkins
Mentoring, coaching, and counseling are three of the most important skills that you need as a leader. And frequently I hear the terms used almost interchangeably. I think it might make some sense to spend a little time talking about what exactly each one is and how they differ from each other.
First is mentoring. Mentoring is typically done by someone who is not in the chain of command of the person who is the mentee. The mentor is someone in a different area of the organization, typically more senior. Mentoring is typically more of a long-term and career-oriented process. Mentors aren’t necessarily worried about making you better at completing Task A tomorrow or being successful on a project next week. The mentor is much more likely going to talk to the mentee about topics like, “You do so much tactical in your world now, but in the future, you’re going to need to be more strategic. Let’s talk about how to be more strategic and what things you can do to develop those skills on the job.” Or, “Mentee, there’s politics in every organization, even ours. Let’s talk about how that works and how we work with communication.”
And in my world, if you’re serious about your career, you need not one but two mentors. One mentor should be like we’ve just discussed, someone in the organization, not necessarily in your chain of command, that can give you training and orientation to help you further your career in the organization. The second mentor should be someone who is very much like you. If you’re a single mother, you’re nuts if you don’t have a mentor who is a single mother. Or if you’re African American, have a mentor who is African American. Now, these people don’t necessarily need to be in your organization. Many cities offer organizations to join where you can get a mentor who can give you a perception of, “What can somebody in my position, who is very much like me, suggest to further my career?” Mentoring is long term and strategic, and having two mentors is even better than one.
Next is coaching. If you’re a leader in an organization, if you have direct reports, that’s your job. You should be coaching. And I think the best way to look at mentoring is to think of a coach of youth sports, such as a baseball coach. This coach takes the game of baseball and breaks it down to its component parts. And they’ll tell that 10- or 12-year-old, “My goal is to make you the best baseball player on this team. And we’re going to practice hitting every Tuesday and Thursday. Do you know why? Because if you do everything else well but you can’t hit, you still won’t be considered a good baseball player. So we’re going to practice that more than the other activities. But there’s more to the game of baseball than hitting. There’s base-running, there are fielding ground balls. And we’re going to do all of that.” Breaking the game down into component parts, the coach teaches and builds those skills so the player is competent. And along the way, the coach sets goals, gives feedback, and gives encouragement. That is coaching.
And finally, there’s counseling. You’ve already tried coaching and it hasn’t worked particularly well. Sometimes you have to be very direct to get people’s attention. Counseling is focused on achieving the minimum acceptable standards of performance. And it sounds like this: “Here’s what I want, here’s when I want it, here’s how I want it. And if I don’t get it, these are the consequences.” A tip here: once you promise consequences, you have to deliver those consequences. I’m sure you’ve all heard parents of children say, “If you don’t do this, I’m going to do something,” but yet they never do it, right? And what do the children do? Pretty much ignore what the parents have to say. So in counseling, you have to be direct, you have to be very clear, and consequences need to be attached.
These are the three skills that leaders in any organization need to focus on and develop to gain results: mentoring, coaching, and counseling.