Personal Attributes Found in Mentoring and Coaching Process Coaching or Mentoring - Essay Example

Personal Attributes Found in Mentoring and Coaching Process Coaching or Mentoring In the professional world, newly introduced professionals in to a particular trade acquire orientation adjustments into the rather unfamiliar field by some form of apprenticeship. Apparently, apprenticeship per se may not cover the entire adjustment process, but a few of its elements come into play for the best orientation skills. In mentoring and coaching process, the young professional and the established professional form a partnership, mainly for purposes of developing the desired personal and professional development in the trade. The mentors share their vast knowledge on suitable practices that they have observed in their experiences in the trade, mainly to assist the new individual. A mentor fosters personal and professional development in the new individual, imparting some of the best adjustment discoveries, knowledge and insights. The mentee (inexperienced individual) requires training on some of the best practices to embrace for the growth and development (Singer, 1990, p45). Modern businesses and other institutions have established a well defined mentoring structure within their policy and management practices. Human resource has continually explored the capacity of potential maximization, with a promising result being obtained from professional growth that mentoring offers. Coaching partnerships nurture personal and professional growth, where the outstanding challenges likely to hinder growth are tackled. Modern mentoring in any setting has taken a professional direction, with psychological research offering useful revelations on how to perform the best mentoring procedure. Educational Coaching Coaching and mentoring is particularly useful in educational institutions, where the mentor (teacher or lecturer) shapes up the mentee (student) towards making improvements in personal and academic growth. As a mentor, the teacher must display some attributes that will facilitate the transfer of the skills into the behaviour of the student. The teacher needs to be rigorous (Flaherty, 2009, p179). The mentor must exercise patience before the desired transformations take effect. In the academic setting, students require some time to absorb the taught skills and reasonable time allowed for displaying the impact. Self consistency is demanded by efficient coaching procedures. There must be plans in place to ensure that the mentors appear to practice what they teach and follow ups facilitated. For coaching to make meaning to the student, the mentors must ensure that they use creative and flexible means to attract attention that must be present for transformations. The mentors must assess their responsiveness to the requirements that they must possess to facilitate a good mentoring process. A mentor can simply rate him or herself and improve on the areas they are not well versed with. Skill and quality of handling mentees must be sincerely made and the correct description sought. The intended outcomes must be stated prior to the mentorship relationship. A relationship must be created between the level of proficiency or ability and the intended results. Once the preparations have been made, the mentor then examines if there are relationship issues that are likely to compromise the independence and professionalism of the exercise. For instance, a person can not mentor a close relative or friend. There must be some professional distance. In Jan (2008, p4), teachers should use their teaching masterly to influence certain desirable attributes in their students during the coaching process. It is clearly observed that coaching, once started should be a lifelong experience and process. Educational mentors should always aim at improving the learning priorities of their mentees. Professionals are processed in learning institutions and the demand for professional leadership skills in the market today leaves teachers with a responsibility of imparting leadership skills. Social skills and the psychological intricacies involved should be utilized n formulating a good model for coaching (Murphy et al, 1937, p63). Personal Attributes According to Jung (1971, p96), the personalities of the individuals play an important role in the perceptions held about a particular topic. The mentoring process that takes psychological considerations for the process is likely to offer desirable results. Understanding the behaviour and personality of an individual solves the motivation problem that the mentor. The mentors must understand themselves first in order to understand the rest. Jung found out that there are two levels of psychological functioning; conscious and unconscious. Motivation in an individual is dependent on the balance between the two levels. This discovery led to development of the general attitude types namely; introverted and extroverted. Psychic energies that represent personal commitment to a subject are invested in varying levels in these two attitudes. Whereas extroverts invest their energies outwards to the service of the world, introverts direct their psychic energy to themselves (Feinstein & Krippner, 1988, p33). The framework of the functional types of psychology by Jung found out four attitude attributes namely; thinking and feeling that determine decision making and judgment as well as sensation and intuition which enable search of information and perceptions. Thinking and feeling functional types have opposing attributes on which rationale is based. Sensation and intuition are also opposite functions that occasion irrationality in an individual. In summary, Jung’s functional types can be said to involve judgment and perceptions. When the mentor understands these parameters, the psychological input required is designed on consciousness or lack of it in approaches adopted in decision making (Flaherty, 2005, p23). When each of these opposing functions dominates the psychological functionality, introverted and extroverted attitudes cause a variety of psychological types. From the four functional types, either introverted or extroverted attitudes can give a total of eight psychological types with defined features. It is the use of these features analysis that enables mentoring to offer suitable solutions to the process (Singer, 1990, p105). Personality types can further be analyzed to give another higher level of definition containing sixteen personality types. For instance, extraverted category contains eight subcategories. This array of personality types can be used to enhance the suppressed but desired types in coaching in order to bring out a more complete and competent person. In educational coaching and mentorship, it is important that the mentor and mentee align their behaviour and personalities to adopt necessary changes on personality. Effective learning should be given the priority, since leadership and academic excellence remain important goals in the process. Educational leaders are very different from management or any other sort of leadership. Education setting and the long term goals that education aims at present a unique challenge that must be handled uniquely. The education community must be willing to accommodate the provisions of the process of coaching and mentorship, in order to develop leadership within the education context. Educational leaders must exhibit supportive attributes such as; innovative, reformists, transformative, focused enthusiasts, lead by example, consultative as well as energetic (Jan, 2008, p22). References Jung, C.G. (1971). Psychological types. in collected works, vol. 6. (Original work published 1921). Princeton: Princeton University Press. Flaherty, J. (2005). Coaching: evoking excellence in others. Oxford, UK: Butterworth-Heinemann Murphy, G., Murphy, L.B., & Newcomb, T. (1937). Experimental social psychology. New York, NY: Harper. Singer, J. (1990). A Jungian approach to dreamwork. Los Angeles: J.P. Tarcher. Feinstein, D., & Krippner, S. (1988b). Personal mythology: The psychology of your evolving self. Los Angeles: Tarcher. Jan, Robertson, (2008). Coaching educational leadership: building leadership capacity through partnership. London, UK: SAGE Publications Read More