Thursday, April 14, 2005

Mentoring

I was looking at the professional development material on the Canadian Library Association website and found this excellent article on mentoring for librarians: "Mentor, Mentor, Who's the Best Mentor?" by Joanne Oud and Angela Madden of Wilfred Laurier University. It says that currently most librarians do not have formal mentors, and it discusses both how to find a mentor and how to be a mentor.

Over the years I have sought out individuals for various aspects of my career, but never asked someone formally to be a mentor. Finding a "coach" seems to be the bigger trend these days, especially when jobs seem to be expanding beyond traditional boundaries. I have also tried to give advice to the individuals coming up after me, but again never suggested formal mentoring to them. Will have to give this some thought.

This makes me think--what are the big differences between mentoring and coaching?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey connie,

my feeling is that mentorship is more about letting someone else learn from your experiences and insights - the mentee decides what they want to take from the interaction.

coaching is more about getting the person being coached to where they want to be - the coachee has a specific objective in mind that they want the coach to help them with.

Anonymous said...

sorry, didn't mean to post anonymously ... silly radio buttons ;)

Connie Crosby said...

So, if I want to advance, but am not sure exactly what my goal should be, which would be more helpful, mentor or coach?