Whether you realise it or not, you have most likely played the role of ‘mentor’ to another coach, or a player, in a one-off situation or over a longer period of time.
It might be a formal arrangement, or it might be an organic process as you support someone within your club or organisation.
However, when you are in that position, aiding the development of fellow coaches, what should you be doing to make the most of the relationship and provide an effective learning opportunity?
In our Coach Mentor Diploma course, we explore the role and importance of the coach mentor, led by our coach development mentor Sarah McQuade.
Four Top Tips Four Being An Effective Mentor
- First and foremost, it’s important to understand the coach’s hopes and dreams – what are their goals? What are their drivers?
- Establish what they know. What can they do already? Or what have they tried before? This is valuable in enabling mentors to work with coaches to create specific objectives to help them to reach their goals.
- Help determine how the coach will achieve their aims and identify the additional knowledge, resources and support they might need on their journey.
- Should the mentee coach begin to stray from their path, help them to remain on course to achieve what they initially set out to do through encouragement and objective guidance based on what you already know about them.
Understanding how to do this and be an effective and supportive mentor is covered in great depth in the Coach Mentor Diploma.
Through live webinar sessions and online learning, across three blocks, the diploma course will help coaches learn the key skills of a mentor looking deeply at how to build mentoring relationships and use the mentoring cycle.
You will learn about coach profiling, where you, as a mentor, can work with coaches to establish what they already know, can do and, critically, how effective they are.
This will then give you the skills to draw up professional development plans and understand how to provide supported practice for coaches in the field to help them maximise their learning.
It will provide coaches with a valuable CPD opportunity that will ultimately create a better environment for players to develop and achieve success. And on completion, coaches will also receive a United Soccer Coaches Diploma certificate.
So, if your work involves supporting other coaches through their development and you would like to learn how to do this more effectively, join our latest intake on our Coach Mentor Diploma.
Click the link, add the course to the basket and secure your place in this exclusive cohort.
He talked to the MiMentor for the Coaches Coffee Club about match analyses and observation.