An Introduction to Mentoring Sports Coaches

Mentoring is nothing new, particularly in sport. We have all turned to an experienced friend or colleague for advice, especially when we are learning something new or are facing a new challenge. What is new is the concept of using a mentor in a more structured way to help guide you through a challenging learning process.

Mentoring can be a truly rewarding experience for both mentor and coach. It can be an invaluable tool for developing coaches, for sharing knowledge and skills, for revealing new ways of doing things and helping coaches to engage in life-long learning for the benefits of athletes at every level.

This brief introduction contains information to assist clubs who may be thinking about introducing mentors working to support the development of coaches within the club. It gives some key information around mentoring in addition to some practical guidance and tools that can be used.

It is strongly advised that any coaches wishing to take on a role as a mentor attend an introductory workshop called ‘A Guide to Mentoring Sports Coaches’.

To find out more about this workshop and for details of when this workshop will be running, please contact your County Sports Partnership (activedorset@activedorset.org).

The Benefits of Mentoring

Different Types of Mentoring Relationships

Mentors can play a variety of roles depending of the needs of the coach/official at any given time. A good mentor will be able to switch between these roles to suit the needs of the coach/official.

Coach:

Showing how to perform a task or activity. This role may use a variety of teaching methods such as inform, question, model and confirm.

Facilitate:

Creating opportunities for the coach/official to use new skills or suggesting ways the coach/official can move toward their goals. 

Counsel:

Help the mentor explore consequences of potential decisions or actions. The mentor should listen, probe, clarify and provide advice when asked.

Sponsor:

Promote or refer the coach/official to others. Provide access to a wider network.

Support:

Encourage the coach/official to grow by providing support, acceptance, inspiration, and challenge. Try to relate to the coach/official and share experiences.

Establishing a Successful Mentoring Relationship

Whatever the purpose of your mentoring relationship, you will find that effective relationships involve the following processes:

Identifying needs – by identifying the needs of the coach/official and the mentor at the beginning of the relationship, you will be clear on what you both hope to get from it and can better tailor the experience to meet both your needs.

Goal setting – after you have identified your needs you should be able to set some specific goals for the relationship – for both the coach/official and the mentor. An example of a goal for a coach being mentored might be “to improve the quality of feedback provided to individual athletes at training”. Whereas a mentor might have a goal “to spend 10 minutes reflecting on my own coaching after each training session, so that I am better able to explain the rationale for my actions to the coach”.

Establishing an agreement – the agreement does not need to be a formal written one (although this might be appropriate), but you should at least discuss and agree upon some ground rules for your relationship. For example, how often you will meet and where, whether its OK to phone one another at home, what time period you want the relationship to run for and when you want to review the relationship etc.

Observation – observation of the coach/official in action should focus on the needs and goals that they have already identified. You might find it helpful to develop a simple observation checklist with your mentee to ensure that they focus their attention on their areas of need, or to use the GROW Model detailed below.

Using the GROW Model

A key role of a mentor is to support others coaches to achieve their goals. As a mentor you will typically help coaches to solve problems, make better decisions or to learn new skills. One proven approach that will help you to achieve this is the GROW model...

G – Goal – What do you want?
R – (current) Reality – What is happening now?
O – Options – What can you do?
W – Will – What will you do?

The GROW process can be used in isolation to help coaches to self-reflect and assess their training needs, use the following guidance when using this tool to help your coaches identify and start to work towards their goals.

1. Establish a Goal – define and agree the goal to be achieved. Useful questions include:

- What would you like to get out of this session?
- What is important and relevant to you – meeting your needs?
- Why are you here? (Personal needs vs Corporate needs)

Define and agree your goal/outcome (specific, measurable & realistic)
- How will you know when you’ve achieved it?
- How will you know when the problem is solved?

2. Examine the current Reality – this is a very important step; too often, people try to solve a problem without fully considering their starting point, and often they are missing some of the information they need to solve the problem effectively. As a coach starts to tell you about their current reality, the solution may start to emerge. Useful questions to ask include:

• Tell me what you do – explain a typical coaching session…
• Self reflect on your last coaching performance – what went well? What didn’t?
• What is the problem – describe in layman’s terms?
• What are the challenges and how can we address them?

3. Explore the Options – once you have discussed the current reality, explore all of the possible options that may exist in solving the problem or meeting the challenges. Offer your own suggestions, but allow the coach to do most of the talking. Useful questions include:

• What have you done recently to make you better at what you do?
• Why did you decide to do this?
• What is your reason for improving your coaching?
• How are you going to do this?

4. Establish the Will – by now the coach should have a picture of how they can achieve their goal. The final step is to get them to commit to a specific action, and in so doing you will help them establish their will and motivation. Useful questions include:

- What do you know / what don’t you know / how can you find out?
- What will you do now and when will you do it?
- What are the barriers and what can you do to overcome them?
- Will these actions help you to achieve your goal?

What else will you do?

The two most important skills that you can use as a mentor are effective questioning and active listening. Try to avoid closed questions – “Did that cause a problem?”, ask open ones – “What effect did that have?”.

Be prepared with a list of questions for each stage of the process. Remember to listen well and let the coach do most of the talking. Silence is valuable thinking time – you don’t have to fill it with more questions!

The GROW Model

Click here for details of effective questions and prompts.