Dear Ms Theologian,
A followup question from De-Mentor.
If one cannot be a mentor if one has no interest in helping others on their career paths, should one still be a manager? Must a manager be a mentor?
-De-Mentor
Dear De-Mentor:
Managing involves organizing, delegating, scheduling, and often reviewing. Mentoring involves inspiring, counseling, helping, and coaching. Managing is different than mentoring to Ms. Theologian’s way of thinking. Managing does not always involve mentoring. In fact, it most often does not.
Here is where it gets confusing. Just as mentors coach, sometimes managers need to coach.
Now coaching is a sports term, and Ms. Theologian is not partial to sports terms, however she will press on with the sports metaphor despite the internal confusion it causes her.
Employee coaching can be done when employees are properly and fully trained, but their actions have ethical or legal ramifications, they are repeating behaviors that cause them to fail, or they are not functioning well as part of the team. This is not mentoring, however; this is coaching.
Think of the professional baseball coach. The players know the rules. They know the basics of how to swing and catch. But the coach helps them address issues that have bigger ramifications (say the player gambles, for example, or hires prostitutes….coaches deal with that sort of thing) or maybe the player keeps swinging too high or too low and missing the ball or perhaps the player doesn’t get along well with the other members of the team. These are all issues a coach can address.
So, in the workplace, a manager may be able to coach an employee through a tricky legal deal or with a particularly cantankerous client interaction. A manager may coach an employee through preparations for a presentation. A manager may coach an employee with an internal dispute or through mediation.
Managers do not have to mentor, but they may have to coach.
-Ms. Theologian