What is Mentor Coaching?

With all of the different terms for varying types of coaching, there is often confusion about what Mentor Coaching is and how it is different from Supervision or even individual coaching. I feel that it is important to outline the differences between these coaching methods for clarity.

Individual Coaching as defined by Sir John Whitmore who has regularly been recognized as the father of coaching,

"Coaching is unlocking people's potential to maximise their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them."

If you search for the definition of Mentor Coaching, you’ll find many responses that are provided by various coaching organizations as well as the ICF. My interpretation and description of Mentor Coaching is this,

“Mentoring is the collaboration of two or more individual coaches where one is considered more experienced and responsible for the record keeping of participant Mentor Coaching hours for ICF. While the more experienced coach is the facilitator for the conversation, this is a learning opportunity for all participants.”

While this article is not specific to mentoring of other coaches, it does clarify the difference in coaching and mentoring in an organization. Having previously participated in the development of organizational mentorship programs, I see the primary difference between organizational mentoring and mentor coaching being the focus of the discussion. Rather than employees working in a variety of roles, we only focus on coaches and topics that pertain to coaching. The overall mentoring concepts still apply.

Mentor Coaching is reflective and aimed at evaluating performance for the benefit of future development. It is also about sharing new ideas for development and improvement. Based on ICF requirements, this is a reflective process over a minimum of 3 months. The program is focused on connecting with peers, learning and refreshing our knowledge about the competencies and ethics requirements, and dedicated opportunities to talk about challenges and ask questions in a comfortable setting.

Coaching Supervision is another term you hear about in the coaching world. It has been more popular in European countries but is gaining more attention here in the United States. Coaching Supervision is defined as,

L3 Additional coaching methodologies