Coaching or mentoring for principals: a difficult choice

 

Mr Michael Hogan Michael Hogan & Associates Coffs Harbour, New South Wales, Australia

 

Towards the end of my 28 years of principalship, I became very interested in the notion of executive coaching as a support mechanism for principals and school leadership teams. I was extremely fortunate to work in a school where the leadership team was open to fresh ideas and innovative approaches. The team was cooperative and so I was able to ‘experiment' on them with some executive coaching techniques and gain valuable feedback.

I also had a number of trusting and cooperative colleagues, who allowed me to ‘experiment' on them. The results were so encouraging that, after I retired at the end of 2004, I established an executive coaching and mentoring consultancy, which aimed to focus on supporting school principals.

Three interesting things happened.

1. The demand by principals for coaching and mentoring support was overwhelming. Some requests originated from system administrators to assist a small number of principals who were experiencing difficulties. However, the major demand came from principals who were keen to improve their performances and/or craved empathy and trust with someone they could confide in.

2. All the principals extended the support to involve their leadership teams.

3. A number of small to medium-sized businesses, professional practices and government departments, whose owners or managers were closely associated with some of these schools, made approaches about executive coaching. The school principals were actually influencing community leaders to attempt something different.

All the above points raise a tremendous range of issues worth exploring and considering. Some are the vulnerability and loneliness of the principal's role, the principal's clearly articulated need for confidential and non-judgmental support and the principal's eagerness to seek help in developing his or her leadership team and nurturing the fine art of distributing leadership to staff.

To assist the involved principals, both coaching and mentoring approaches have been used. At this point, it is worth explaining the difference between coaching and mentoring.

Mentoring can take two forms. Ehrich describes the traditional informal mentoring arrangements: ‘It is usually a senior or more experienced person in an organisation who elects to initiate a relationship with a younger member who is recognised as having talent'. (1)

This often happens when an older, more experienced principal (often a neighbour) takes a younger or newly appointed principal ‘under his or her wing'. This can be effective and many principals have found the advice and support most useful.

Formal mentoring programs have existed in systems and schools and these have usually (almost always) been structured from the top down, with mentors appointed. Once again, the anecdotal evidence is that this can be a reasonably useful approach in quite a number of cases. The formal mentoring programs implemented by the National College for School Leadership, in the United Kingdom, have been the subject of some qualitative research (2). The findings indicate strongly that the mentees and mentors felt generally positive about the experience and believed they were better leaders because of the experience. The long-term impact of these mentoring programs would be interesting to monitor with a view to determining whether or not there will be any long lasting and specified development of skills and strategies that will assist with a more productive and well-balanced professional and personal life for the principal.

Coaching is different to mentoring because coaching assumes the client (principal) knows the workplace (school) better than anyone from outside and the coaching strategy will assist the client (principal) to arrive at, and be committed to, sensible, workable solutions. The client owns the strategies for change because they have not been imposed from outside or above.

A common approach for an executive coaching program involving a school principal would include the following:

• a suitably qualified and experienced coach is identified, and agreed to, by the principal;
• the coach gathers general background information about the school;
• the coach and principal meet in a one-on-one, confidential setting;
• the coach and principal agree on an issue for discussion and exploration, for example, a staff problem, a resource matter, a curriculum priority;
• the coach assists the principal to set a goal relevant to the issue;
• a wide range of options are discussed, then discarded or adopted(an experienced principal as coach can be useful here in gently making suggestions);
• the principal arrives at solutions and strategies with careful and subtle assistance from the coach (once again, an experienced principal as coach can be useful here);
• the principal commits to action;
• a time frame is set (and must be strictly adhered to);
• agreement is reached on the principal providing feedback to the coach and the coach; providing support and advice, if and when needed;
• progressive contact is made by telephone and email;
• a session is organised at the end of the agreed time frame to assess progress towards the stated goal.

Landsberg differentiates coaching from other strategies with his ‘Ask/Tell' repertoire. Landsberg feels that asking questions and making subtle suggestions by both coach and client is more empowering, while telling, through giving advice, solution provision, and directing ‘what and how' is more controlling.

Sergiovanni points out that: ‘all theories of leadership emphasise connecting people to each other, and all theories of leadership emphasise connecting people to their work. Connections satisfy the needs for coordination and commitment that any enterprise must fulfil in order to succeed'. (4)

Executive coaching by experienced, competent and qualified practitioners focuses very strongly on this type of connection. Boyatzin, McKee and Goleman make the point that ‘our own biases and experiences sometimes make it impossible for us to find a way out of a difficult or confusing situation; we need an outside perspective'. (5)

Because I am perceived as an experienced and reasonably successful school administrator, most principals did not want coaching but instead request mentoring. This seems to be because of time constraints, work pressures and the myriad of daily problems, challenges and issues requiring immediate solutions. However, most principals have been keen to develop their own coaching skills, to coach members of their leadership teams. All the involved principals have also been more than willing to have members of their leadership teams coached (rather than mentored), so that they, in turn, can coach staff members.

Individual and group coaching sessions often have identified areas of pedagogical and organisational need, and effective professional development activities have been the result. This is because those involved selected the focus and assisted in tailoring the programs. It has been extremely challenging for me to decide when to mentor and when to coach. Because I have encountered most of the school issues faced by principals and ‘lived to tell the tale' it has been important that I do not:

• tell ‘war stories';
• attempt to offer ‘quick fix' solutions because they had worked for me.

Therefore, I have always, tried to coach rather than mentor. When I am forced into mentoring, I always try to use coaching techniques to assist with the principal's deliberations, so he or she can generate his or her own solutions.

Mentoring is almost always what principals seek but effective coaching is really what they need! When coaching a school principal or members of a school leadership team, it does help to understand the pressures and the culture. However, this is also the biggest danger. Vigilance is required when self-monitoring as a coach, so that effective long-term personal and professional development occurs, instead of an outsider generating quick ‘one-off' solutions.

If principals are considering engaging a coach or mentor, the two most important factors to consider are to select someone you can trust completely and someone who does not promise instant success and glib solutions.

References

Ehrich, L (2004). ‘Benefits and Pitfalls of Mentoring for Mentors'. In Perspectives on Educational Leadership, Australian Council of Educational Leaders, Vol. 14, No. 2, 2004.

Luck, C (2003). It's Good to Talk: An enquiry into the value of mentoring as an aspect of professional development for new head teachers. National College for School Leadership, Nottingham, Summer 2003.

Landsberg, M, The Tao of Coaching, Profile Books, London, 2003.

Sergiovanni, TJ (1966). Leadership for the Schoolhouse, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco. Boyatzin, R, McKee, A, & Goleman, D (2002). ‘Reawakening Your Passion for Work'. In Harvard Business Review.

 

Mr Mike Hogan has worked as a teacher, consultant and school principal for many years. He is an accredited mediator and concilo-arbitrator with the Australian Commercial Disputes Centre and an Accredited Level 11 Executive Coach with the Australian Institute of Executive Coaching. After retiring, Mike established a consultancy, Michael Hogan & Associates, which specialising in coaching, mentoring, communication, team building, facilitation and mediation. He is passionate about executive coaching and mentoring as tools to assist leaders and potential leaders in working towards more balanced and productive professional and personal lives.

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