The Idea Of Coaching And Mentoring In Relation To Personal Development

The phrases “coaching” and “mentoring” are often used across the school, particularly in my capacity as assistant headteacher for mathematics, early professional development (EPD), and teaching quality. The school has a mentoring and coaching mentality and has accepted the mentoring and coaching CPD Capacity Building Project 2004–2005’s mentoring and coaching principles (National Framework for Coaching and Mentoring). Certain of these principles have been accepted by the school, but not all coaches and mentors have. As a result, some mentoring advice and the use of open-ended questions is still a cause for worry and has come under criticism on a few occasions during the academic year 2018–2019. I mentored three recently qualified teachers (NQTs) and one schools direct trainee in my capacity as EPD lead. I was also ensuring the quality of other students’ mentoring around the institution. Due to exceptional circumstances, one of the NQTs had to prolong her Final Induct. Throughout her Induct 2, she gave sometimes unsatisfactory and performance that needed improvement. The fact that KPS has continued to evaluate classes despite recent Ofsted guidelines that states “Ofsted does not expect schools to use the Ofsted assessment schedule to grade teaching or individual lessons” is another inconsistency with national policies. The CEO made this choice because she wanted a way to keep staff members in various roles accountable and to ensure the quality of the teaching practice.

In recent years, many individuals have started using the terms “coaching” and “mentoring” interchangeably (Parsloe and Leedham, 2009). These two concepts are often used in conjunction since they are methods for promoting personal development (Garvey, 2011; Clutterbuck and Megginson, 2016). However, as they both have very unique qualities that have an influence on how they are used in real life, there needs to be a clear distinction made between these two words to guarantee that there is clarity in understanding and utilizing the terms. This has contributed to the variable quality of mentoring, which has led to negative outcomes for certain mentees and coachees.

Both coaching and mentoring have been around since the beginning of time, but their origins are different. Mentoring gets its origins from Homer’s Greek Odyssey (Garvey, 2011), when an older, wiser man was requested by Odysseus to watch after his son while he went to battle. Homer’s mentor not only looked out for him but also helped him be ready for the duties and tasks that were ahead (Rogers, 2004: 23). Today, the word “mentor” has come to represent the idea of a trusted advisor, someone who is more knowledgeable and experienced than you and who is often employed by or otherwise connected to your company but who is not your direct boss (Rogers, 2004: 23). This individual serves as a mentor and ally. Although the word “mentor” has roots in Ancient Greece, its contemporary meanings come from a relatively “recent” piece of fiction. Les Aventures de Telemaque, an epic story that was purposefully modeled after Homer’s Odyssey, was published in 1699 by the French author and educator François Fénelon. The characteristics that have come to be associated with mentoring today were bestowed onto Mentor in this book (Roberts 1999). The term mentor finally entered the English language with its present connotation because to Fenelon’s very famous book.

The majority of definitions given in the academic and practitioner literature make reference to Kathy Kram’s groundbreaking research on workplace mentoring conducted in the 1980s. Mentoring is a close, ongoing connection between a senior, more experienced person (the mentor) and a more junior, less experienced person (the protégé), according to Kram (1985). (Eby & Allen 2002, p. 456; Kram 1985). In 1988, she expanded on this and advocated for performance mentoring, saying that a mentor should be able to assist a protégé “navigate efficiently in the organizational environment” (Kram, 1988).

This original definition has since been revised and developed, leading to the current plethora of definitions and analyses of the mentoring notion in the literature. Conflicting ideas include Can mentors be peers? Can a younger employee guide an experienced one? Can a mentor also be a direct superior? Is formal mentorship possible?

In a similar vein, Daniel Levinson’s book The Seasons of a Man’s Life from 1979 introduced the contemporary mentoring notion to the United States. This extensive longitudinal study of male development was conducted. Levinson referred to someone as a “mentor” who was often half a generation older and who may hasten another person’s growth via age-related changes. He proposed that mentorship may shorten these age shifts, which now take seven years on average, to only three. This very soon served as the impetus for a surge in mentoring that would concentrate on a quickening of job advancement in the USA. Levision’s philosophy of mentoring reinforced the notion that a mentor ought to be skilled, experienced, and elder in a certain subject. However, this begs the issue of how much mentor experience is necessary. How may the expertise of a mentor be evaluated? How qualified and experienced was I to mentor and coach an underperforming NQT in the context of this assignment? The aforementioned description runs counter to Kay and Hinds’ (2005) research, which found that “a mentor is perceived as being an equal” (Kay and Hinds, 2005). This raises the issue of how a mentor can be an equal when they have greater knowledge and experience and are, in the words of Levison (1979), “someone who is frequently half a generation older.”