5 Planning and Managing a Mentoring Programme in Sport


Coaches


The primary prerequisite for coaches is their commitment. They must be motivated to develop their coaching. One of the keys to success often cited is the voluntary nature of a mentoring programme – in other words, people choose to be involved rather than being compelled or coerced. If a coach feels that they do not wish or need to develop further then participation in a mentoring programme is likely to have no/little impact.


Open-minded coaches who actively seek and welcome constructive feedback will benefit most from mentoring. Apart from these few personal attributes, it does help if the coach has the time to devote to the programme and the opportunity to practise and receive feedback on their coaching. Ideally, coaches should be actively coaching at some time during the programme so that they can analyse their current practice, gain feedback and explore new strategies. Coaches must enter the programme with the mindset that this is a valuable investment of their time in terms of furthering their own development in coaching rather than yet another task or ‘chore’ that they must do that will add yet another pressure to their already busy lives.


Mentors


In order to fulfil their overall role of facilitating a coach’s development by encouraging self-reflection and critical analysis, mentors will require relevant knowledge, skills and personal attributes. Table 1 identifies examples of such requirements. This is not intended as a comprehensive or definitive list, but rather to help you understand what type of people you need to be thinking about when selecting your mentors. This table is based on a more extensive list that appears in Mentoring in Sport 2


. Programme manager


Ideally, the person who coordinates and manages the programme should be someone with sufficient time and energy to devote to ensuring the effectiveness of the programme. The manager is normally a full-time member of staff working with the governing body or commissioning organisation. The results of the pilot study suggested that the manager needs to have protected time to do the job and that it is helpful if they are based sufficiently close to the mentors and coaches to ensure that meeting up, when necessary, is not too difficult. It is useful if the manager understands the mentoring process, has good interpersonal and communication skills and is able to act as an objective arbiter in cases of mismatches or conflict.


Table 1: Examples of knowledge, skills and personal attributes required by mentors Knowledge


Learning styles and preferences Self-reflection process Goal setting


Expertise development process Profiling


Role of a mentor – in general and the developmental stage of the mentee


Processes for structuring sessions (eg GROW model)


Processes for encouraging feedback and self-reflection (eg REVIEW model)


Skills


Questioning and active listening Goal setting


Managing feedback Observation and analysis


Communication and building relationships/rapport


Challenging Agreeing boundaries Negotiating Decision making


Planning and reviewing Organisation


Time and conflict management


Open-minded Objective


Empathetic Approachable Trustworthy Role model Committed Honest and sensitive Self-aware


Genuine interest Positive


Willing to give up time Attributes


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