When Mentoring Meets Coaching: Shifting the Stance in Education

Table of Contents

Foreword

Introduction

CHAPTER 1

An Overview

Mentoring and Coaching: Powerful Allies
Integral Components of Mentoring and Coaching

  • About Mentoring
  • Goals of Mentors
  • About Coaching
  • Foundational Elements of the Coaching Process and Relationship
  • Goals of Coaches

What Happens When Mentoring Meets Coaching
The Guiding Principles of Mentor-Coaching

  • Mentor-Coaching: A Learner-Centred Model
  • Opportunities Within Education
  • A New Pedagogy to Support Deep Learning

CHAPTER 2

Mentor-Coaching Builds Capacity

Building Capacity and Mobilizing for Growth

  • Basic “Building Materials”
  • A Strengths-Based Approach to Capacity Building

Mentor-Coaching: An Impactful Approach for Professional Learning

  • Coaching: A Critical Component of Effective Professional Learning
  • Integrating Professional Learning, Skills, and Behaviours: Putting Learning into Practice
  • Linking Effective Professional Learning to Enhancing Student Achievement
  • Coaching and Mentoring and Impactful Professional Learning: Three Reports
  • An Effective Adult Learning Model

Mentor-Coaching and Educational Leadership .

  • Aligning Mentor-Coaching with Educational Leadership Research

CHAPTER 3

Learning in Relationship

The Importance of Being in Relationship

  • What “Learning in Relationship” Makes Possible
  • How Is Learning in a Relationship Unique?
  • How Relationships Influence Learning
  • Creating a Culture of Learning and Accountability

The Mentor-Coaching Relationship
What Sets the Mentor-Coaching Relationship Apart?

  • Factor 1: The Relationship Is Co-created.
  • Factor 2: Mentor-Coaching Includes a Mindset That Builds Capacity and Accelerates Learning
  • Factor 3: A Reciprocal Learning Relationship Is Created
  • Factor 4: Mentor-Coaching Provides a Thinking Partner
  • Factor 5: Mentor-Coaching Provides Infrastructure for Organizational Learning

Critical Aspects of the Mentor-Coaching Relationship

  • Dignity
  • Authenticity
  • Being in the Moment, Fully Present
  • Trust
  • Mutual Respect
  • Vulnerability
  • Connectedness
  • Collaboration 
  • Confidence and Assuming Competence
  • Accessing Creativity
  • Accessing Intuition
  • Meaning Making: Sharing Stories, Wisdom, and Experience 

CHAPTER 4

The Mentor-Coaching Model

Working from the Inside Out

  • Avoiding the Outside-In Approach

Growing Talent Toward Results
The Role of the Collective in Supporting Learning and Growth
The Anatomy of the Mentor-Coaching Model .

  • The Individual/Red Zone
  • The Collective/Yellow Zone
  • The Results/Green Zone
  • The Arrow Runs Through
  • Alignment Within the Model: Individual, Collective, and Results
  • Reflecting on Our Work from the Inside Out

CHAPTER 5

Being Coach-like: Presence, Mindset, and Stance

Who We Are Being
Presence: Internal State or Readiness

  • The Presence of the Mentor-Coach
  • The Essential Aspects of the Mentor-Coach’s Presence
  • Cultivating Heightened Awareness Around Presence in the Mentee
  • Practices That Develop Presence

Mindset: Fundamental Attitudes and Assumptions

  • Mindset of the Mentor-Coach

Stance: Positioning Within the Dynamic of the Process and Relationship

  • The Importance of Stance
  • The Stance of the Mentor-Coach 

CHAPTER 6

Critical Mentor-Coaching Skills: Being Present and Listening

The Most Critical Skills of Mentor-Coaching

  • Being in the Moment, Fully Present
  • Listening Deeply: Distinguishing Between “Listening Through” and
  • “Listening To”
  • “Listening Through”
  • “Listening To”
  • Noticing Distinctions as You Listen

Cultivating the Inner Conditions and Stance for “Listening To”

  • Learning to Notice Our Filters and Barriers
  • “Listening To” the Language of the Mentee

CHAPTER 7

Critical Mentor-Coaching Skills: Asking Questions, Focusing on the Mentee’s Agenda, and Self-Managing

Three Critical Skills of Mentor-Coaching
Asking Impactful Questions

  • So What Are the “Best” Questions to Ask?
  • The Impact of Powerful Questions
  • Types of Questions to Ask
  • Types of Questions to Avoid
  • Generating Questions from the Mentee’s Language
  • Questions that Grow Out of “Listening For”

Focusing on the Mentee’s Agenda and Commitment to Learning, Growth, and Development
Rigour in Self-Managing: Staying Out of Fixing, Solving, and Interpreting—It Is the
Mentee’s Work

  • Self-Management in Action
  • Best Practices for Sharing Experience and Wisdom

CHAPTER 8

The Mentor-Coaching Conversation: Navigating with Depth, Breadth, and Intentionality

Mentor-Coaching: Cultivating Conditions for Change, One Conversation at a Time

  • Mentor-Coaching Conversations Foster Connection and Relationships
  • Mentor-Coaching Is Collaborative Conversation, Accessing Voice, and Bearing Witness
  • Noticing Our Internal Conversations
  • Conversation Is Central to Learning

A Model for Navigating the Mentor-Coaching Conversation

  • Exploring the Layers of the Mentor-Coaching Conversation

Navigating Common Challenges of Mentor-Coaching Conversations

  • What If the Conversation Feels Too Superficial?
  • What Do You Do If All the Mentee Wants to Do Is Step into Action?
  • What Do You Do If the Agenda Changes as the Conversation Evolves?
  • What Do You Do If the Mentee Arrives with No Agenda?
  • What Do You Do If the Conversation Doesn’t Unfold Sequentially?
  • What Do You Do If the Mentee Is Stuck and Can’t See Any Choices or
  • Other Alternatives?
  • What Do You Do If You Don’t Get Through All the Layers of the Conversation?

Seven Dimensions of Awareness: Areas of Inquiry to Support Co-Creating Awareness

  1. Awareness of Current Reality Relative to the Goal or Desired Change
  2. Awareness of Own Strengths and Gifts
  3. Awareness of Internal and External Resources
  4. Awareness of Own Values
  5. Awareness of What Gets in the Way
  6. Awareness of Vision and Purpose
  7. Awareness of Mindset

CHAPTER 9

Offering and Inviting Feedback: Nourishing Growth
Offering and Inviting Feedback
Facing the Feedback Challenge
The Brain’s “Negativity Bias”
“Growth” and “Fixed” Mindsets: Impact on Experiencing Feedback
Shifting the Feedback Frame
Three Approaches for Offering Impactful Feedback.
1. Acknowledging: INSPIRE
2. Holding Up the Mirror: INSIGHT
3. Sharing Observations: INCITE
Challenging the Mentee
Role-Playing Scenarios: Practising Giving Feedback in a Safe Place

APPENDIX

The Mentor-Coaching Toolkit
Tools for Movement and Growth
Tools for Beginning the Mentor-Coaching Process
Tools for Navigating One Conversation at a Time
Tools for Supporting the Mentee in Building Capacity
Glossary
References
Index
Credits