How coaching mindsets can help you be a better mentor
How coaching mindsets can help you be a better mentor
And why the apprenticeship model of training junior scholars is limiting
Before I jump into today’s newsletter topic, I just want to quickly remind you about the Summer Planning Party that and I are hosting this Wednesday at 6pm CST via Zoom.
In the one-hour event, Nancy and I will help you think through your summer writing plans while accounting for rejuvenation and other commitments over the break. The event is free, but registration is required. We will also share the recording with registrants afterwards if you cannot make it.
Throughout my academic career, I was incredibly fortunate to have an abundance of exceptional mentors. My dissertation advisor was one of the best in the business, and the senior faculty in the department where I worked on a tenure track went out of their way to explain how the institution worked and prepare me for success. These individuals demystified the academy for me, generously sharing their time and expertise.
When I transitioned to a full-time faculty position, I quickly realized that mentoring would be one of the most enjoyable aspects of my role. Navigating an academic career is challenging with its complex politics and often opaque processes. Mentorship is essential because it provides guidance on how academia functions and shares personal experiences to help you navigate various milestones and hurdles.
Now that I am pursuing a coaching certification, I realize how much more effective I could have been as a mentor if I had used coaching strategies more often. So today, I am going to share some thoughts on how to infuse mentoring with a coaching perspective.
I believe that having mentors with coaching skills in academia would significantly improve PhD education and early-career scholar development. And maybe, in the process, we could completely transform academia.
Mentoring vs. Coaching
The academy primarily uses an apprenticeship model for training junior scholars. This involves learning by observing and receiving feedback from more senior scholars. In a PhD program, this typically means a dissertation advisor; in a postdoc, it’s often a lab supervisor. For new faculty, mentoring can be an assigned role, de facto, or sometimes entirely absent.
A mentor in the apprenticeship model imparts wisdom, knowledge, and personal stories to guide mentees through academia. Mentors are experts in their field, sharing strategies they’ve learned to achieve success and making academia more transparent. The expectation is that we learn how to do things the way our mentors did.
While mentoring is incredibly valuable and essential for success in academia, there are specific situations where a coaching approach might be more effective when working with PhD students or other junior scholars.
A coach helps people navigate academia by focusing on their intuition, values, goals, and life circumstances rather than simply relaying what the mentor would do in a given situation or what the most common academic advice would be. They ask insightful questions, provide feedback, and encourage them to develop their own strategies and paths forward. While a mentor offers advice and support, a coach helps you carve out your own path to success.
Reflecting on the apprenticeship model
Although I’ve greatly benefited from having mentors, the apprenticeship model of training has its drawbacks. It tends to reproduce the same structures and paths without considering the diverse ways individuals might approach academia. A mentor often offers advice based on their own experiences and wisdom, which may not be the best path forward for every mentee.
When you consider the fact that mentors usually teach as they were taught, it is easy to see how academic systems continue to replicate themselves based on best practices established by straight, white, able-bodied, neurotypical men. Even when the mentor has diverse identities, they often replicate the same discriminatory patterns that suggest there’s a “right” way to do academia.
Moreover, mentors often feel compelled to provide answers to their mentees rather than helping them discover their own solutions. I can remember trying to give one of my mentees advice on family planning and the academic job market. I do not have children, and she wasn’t really asking for my advice. Why would I think I had any business saying anything?
During my coaching course, I realized that I had the habit of always giving my opinion when working with junior scholars because I believe it is my responsibility as an expert and mentor. But that’s not always what they need. Instead, they may need help figuring it out on their own.
If you always give advice instead of listening and asking questions, you might make it harder for your mentee to learn how to solve problems on their own and become more resilient. Additionally, mentees may be hesitant to go against their mentors' suggestions, even if it goes against their own goals and intuition.
Integrating coaching into mentoring
The further I dive into the art and science of coaching, the more I believe that combining mentoring and coaching would be a much better approach to training junior scholars. By incorporating coaching techniques, mentors can help mentees explore a wider range of possibilities, develop their own strategies, and gain confidence in their unique approaches to academic challenges.
A blend of mentoring and coaching can create a more dynamic and personalized support system, fostering not just the transmission of knowledge but also the development of critical thinking and self-discovery skills.
Final thoughts
Mentoring provides the necessary guidance and support based on experience, while coaching empowers individuals to find their own paths and solutions. Embracing both can lead to more well-rounded and resilient scholars, better prepared to navigate the complexities of academic life.
In an upcoming post, I will talk about some basic coaching techniques that mentors can use with their mentees. I encourage current and future mentors to experiment with coaching techniques to improve the traditional mentoring model.
We can better help the next generation of scholars by teaching them how the traditional path works and giving them the tools to forge their own. Imagine the change that could occur in academia if we truly allowed junior scholars to chart new paths rather than simply replicating the ways things have always been done.