Managing Skills

1. Outline your response.

There are three interesting area for exploration.
1.1 What is the most effective technique of mentoring and coaching for INFJ?
Topic 4 will elaborate the outcome of research.
1.2 Is there any technique of mentoring or coaching difficult people and how?
Topic 2.2.b will elaborate the outcome of research.
1.3 What factors make a mentor or a coach more respectful for a listener?
Topic 2.2.d will elaborate the outcome of research.

2. Guideline: study from many resources but try to focus on academic research.
Organisation has to plan and choose one of the potential leaders of each particular task to guarantee
the sustainable business growth in the long run (Leonard-Cross, 2010). There are some leadership
skills which need to be mentioned later on such as mentoring, coaching, and sponsorship.

2.1 Mentoring

a) Definition
According to Ojedokun (2011), mentoring is a process of teaching to a mentee by a mentor
who is professional and successful in that field for achieving a particular goal of mentee.
The goal might be career development or extending knowledge scope which is usually
flexible with timeframe. Moreover, when the need of a mentee changed, a mentor would be
changed to conform the required expertise. Arogundade (2011) also explained a link
between mentoring and leadership. Mentoring emphasizes less experience mentee to have
skills that should have to perform tasks and leadership fosters an individual to have
capabilities which organisation wants. Therefore, Mentoring is a fundamental which pushes
a person up to a ladder of hierarchy.

b) Methodology
According to Ojedokun (2011), there are two types of a mentee selection i.e. informal and
formal mentoring selection. Informal relationship is happened when a mentor chooses a
mentee by him or her decision. Formal relationship is occurred when a mentee is assigned
to a mentor. Succession plan, leadership development program and rewarding system aligns
to business vision. For example, core competency of a manufacturing sector is quality, cost,
and service level then reward should focus on them. On the other hand, innovative
business, the reward should focus on innovative ideas rather than predictable outcome.
Moreover, mentoring has two vital roles i.e. career and psychosocial functions. Career
functions are focused on career development by improving competencies and visibility at
workplace. Psychosocial functions are interpersonal relationship for creating care, trust, and
friendship. The mentor also shares his or her social relationship at work to the mentee for
preparing to be a part of the group.

c) Benefit
Ojedokun (2011) mentioned three categories of advantages. Firstly, a protégé enhance self-
worth, Interpersonal social interaction, job satisfaction, and better performance. Secondly, a
mentor has a practicing opportunity to be collaborative rather than directive role. A new or
better perspective of interpersonal skills may be reached. Typical people love teaching only
positive knowledge. As a result, this might help them be more optimistic with others.
Moreover, increase their leadership skills and enhance ability of dealing with several types of
people to achieve the goal. Lastly, the organisation will have better working environment,
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create trust in the firm, reduce turnover rate, increase productivity and efficiency, and
reduce risks of brain drain.

d) Essential skills
Ojedokun (2011) suggested that listening and asking great questions are important.
According to Graham Guest Consulting (2005), “a mentor is a wise and trusted counselor,
suitably experienced, acts as a confidential adviser, stimulates professional development and
has usually travelled the mentee’s path”.

e) Challenges
Create trust, especially, the formal mentee selection (as mentioned at 2.1.b). In a business
environment, it is rare to see a mentor who is willing to give everything to someone else
which may perform work well than him or her later on.

2.2 Coaching

a) Definition
According to Ojedokun (2011), coaching is a process of fostering the individuals – usually
based on a one-to-one relationship - to learn increasing competencies or solving the
drawbacks by themselves. Instead of giving the best direction to a learner, a coach
encourages and assists by creating a proper environment - such as strategies or motivation
- for a person or team members to try finding their own ways to reach the goals in a
defined time. However, Neitlich (2012) explained that a coach dose not cure mental
problem e.g. depression or anxiety as same as psychologist does.

b) Methodology
According to Neitlich (2012), coaching outcomes should be measurable. Key indicators
might be productivity, team performance, creativity, job satisfaction, and so on. In term of
techniques, coaching combines both of consulting therapy (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Coaching Methodology (Neitlich, 2012)

Crabb (2011) mentioned about the research that explored coaching technique, which
emphasizes at focusing strengths, managing emotions, and aligning purpose, could drive
individual engagement. By the way, According to Arogundade (2011), relationship is a
crucial link between mentor and mentee. Erik de Hann and Charlotte Sills (2012) noted that
Max Visser emphasized one of the crucial success factors between coach and executive
coachee is relationship which can be explained by behavioral systems perspective.
Practically, a coach should focus on a current conversation and use a coachee’s reaction as
same as a mirror to evaluate and adjust coaching direction during a session. For example,
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when a coachee started getting angrier, a coach should notice, draw a boundary of a
coachee’s emotional perspective, and avoid or use it as a tool to push a coachee for the
emotional controlling practice. Mindfulness is one of the techniques that used for dealing
with emotion. Hall (2013) mentioned about importance of mindfulness – concentration and
attention – in coaching and mentoring. It should be done in before, within, and after a
session. Mindfulness (by doing meditation for ten minutes) helps a coach to have relaxation
and openness. A coachee can have consequent result by being relaxed and more open to
the coach. During the session, stay focus on conversation and situation is vital because the
coach has to notice and analyze what attitude and emotion the coachee has. After the
session, the coach should notice own sensation and a client. Use it as an opportunity of
improvement for the next session. Guptan (2012) noted that Peter Honey and Alan Mumford
developed a cycle of problem solving and decision-making into four stages i.e. having an
experience, reviewing the experience, concluding from the experience, and planning the
next step. Guptan recommended that knowing yourself and others is a beginning.
Personality type assessment tools were suggested such as MBTI. This would help a coach
understands and probes a coaches to a proper direction which matches to individual
perspective.

According to the second question (see 1.2), a coachee, who does not think to align him or
her into a common business goal, would have behaviour incompatible with cooperate
strategies (Dunkley and Palmer, 2011). In the worst case scenario, he or she might be a
troublemaker or even cause toxic organisation. During coaching session, they might have
many proper reasons for avoiding things. This is a duty of coach to use micro-analysis for
diagnose coachee’s thought or even the personality type. It would help the coach to guide
or advice the coachee to better direction which aligns both his own personality and tasks.
Again, the mindfulness technique is crucial for the coach to be calm and concentrate to that
circumstance.

c) Benefit
Coaching is useful for skill adaptation in this globalizing era. The era which technologies
have been changed rapidly and high generation diversity in the workplace – four
generations work together (Bennett and Bush, 2009). According to Leonard-Cross (2010),
the research showed the positive impact to both intrapersonal performance and business
benefits from coaching. Kearns (2006) also emphasized that coaching program in
organisation had worth two times of investment (ROI). Therefore, current trend is
organisation starts developing their own coaches (Bennett and Bush, 2009 and Leonard-
Cross, 2010). In term of intrapersonal advantages, Crabb (2011) elaborated that coaching
creates self-confidence, ethical behaviour, workplace happiness, job satisfaction, employee
engagement, commitment, business performance, competitiveness, and so on.

d) Essential skills
Love asking and know how to ask great questions such as how to apply it into practice or
how does it work for you (Neitlich, 2012), what do they feel passionate about? (Crabb,
2011). According to Guptan (2012), in case of executive working, a coach must have a high
level of expertise and knowledge about particular business environment. Maturity is also
needed to overcome the problems which seem unsolvable. There are many suggested skills
i.e. authenticity, integrity and objectivity, emotional maturity, diagnostic skill, empathy and
sensitivity, communication, facilitation skill, conflict management, relationship skill, referral

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skill, negotiation and persuasion skills, and counseling skill (which help individuals come up
solutions of their problems but coaching could only encourage a coachee to develop beyond
the status quo).

e) Challenge
For the writer, because of slightly low in adaptability score, resilience and open-mind which
is crucial factor for managing emotions need to be developed for better attitude and
happiness in a workplace (Crabb, 2011).

2.3 Sponsorship

a) Definition
According to Ojedokun (2011), Sponsor is a person who has a power to provide a career
opportunity for a sponsee. White (2012) described that “sponsors are people who have the
power to affect the decision making that matters to your career success and who will
exercise it on your behalf by serving as your champions”.

b) Methodology
Sponsors teach both hard and soft skills to increase career opportunities and also connect
others for more potential chances (White, 2012). Sponsor provides practical tips, helps to
sponsee to achieve goals, convinces a boss to choose the sponsee, and so on (Hewlett et
al., 2011).

c) Benefit
There are more effective outcomes than mentoring and coaching, especially, in business
environment. The reason is a sponsor actually has power to provide career opportunities.
For a sponsor, demonstrates leadership and builds the network to be a fundamental for the
next career ladder (Hewlett et al., 2011).

d) Essential skills
Require all skills as same as mentoring and coaching and need to have high experience and
power in that particular career path.

e) Challenge
Even a firm specifies a sponsee to a sponsor but, to make it effectively, how to create
willingness of sponsorship interaction, for example, loyal sponsee and trustworthy sponsor
(Hewlett et al., 2011).

To conclude, According to White (2012), in some case, individual might need to overcome culture and
hidden rules in the business environment. Mentors and sponsors can be better than coaches. White
described that “If you need to find out the hidden rules for success in your organization or industry,
develop a mentoring relationship. If you need someone to advocate for your success when you are not
in the room, develop sponsor and ally relationships. If you need to develop your skills for effectively
designing and implementing a career success strategy, hire a coach”. Critically, the writer has noticed
that there are some negative sides of coaching, mentoring, or sponsorship. Firstly, it might create allies
but also cause enemies as well. As a result, unity and harmony in an organisation might be affected. In
personal, this issue could be solved by transparent management such as shared goals and clear
succession plan. Secondly, according to Hewlett et al. (2011), research showed loyalty and trust are
two crucial reciprocity that sponsors (and mentors) wants. Dose it create freedom of thought and

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creativity? Does a sponsee really have satisfaction with this kind of relationship? Thirdly, poor culture or
hidden rules could be transferred from generation to generation via sponsorship and mentoring. Finally,
Hewlett also mentioned that some unethical sponsors (and mentors) could manipulate their protégés
for being spy, lobbying, or work lever for high competitive roles.

I should add “jealousy” for the rest of staff who are not chosen to be coachee (both of informal and formal
relationship) – in the sense of unity issue  solution might be coaching as a group and who can develop as the
required criteria would be promoted (succession plan).

3. Compare guidelines between past experience and theoretical perspective

According to past experience as mentioned in Assignment Part One, I performed as a mentor at that
time because I encouraged my team both technical skills and attitude for their works. Obviously, I
could not be a sponsor because I did not have power enough to provide the opportunity of higher
career hierarchy. The reason is, at that time, I was just a senior engineer and the mentees came from
many different departments. Giving them the opportunity of presenting their performance in front of
the top management was only thing I could do.

3.1 When I worked at Japanese company and developed cost saving project in entire company.

Past performing Theoretical guideline

(or gap of opportunity for improvement)
a) Top management’s commitment. a) Top management’s commitment
I asked my manager, the general manager, I did not establish the succession plan or
and the managing director to involve in this transparent rewarding system. Employees
project by organizing the appointment for the who develop both technical and leadership
project presentation. skills should have a better credit for job
promotion. This would make sustainable
performance for individuals and organisation.

b) Mentee selection. b) Mentee selection

I asked the department managers for Because lack of the succession plan. I did
assigning key persons to my project. not know the potential substitute persons for
each position. As a result of the systematic
selection was not good then those key
persons – but being busy at work – did not
attend the project.

c) Relationship management
c) Relationship management In this topic about trust and friendship, I
 Created trust by made sure that I was believed that I had done properly. However,
not intent to gain all benefits alone. I did not maintain the network and
Therefore, I emphasized them to think relationship after finishing the project.
the individual cost reduction project and
presented it directly to the managing
director and managers. Some workers,
it was the first time of presenting in
front of the top manager.
 Created friendship amid hectic working
situations. I tried to involve with them
as much as possible. At least, we had a
weekly meeting to report status and
share expertise.

d) Attitude and emotion management d) Attitude and emotional management

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 I did not communicate much with them. I need to develop these skills as follows;
The reason was I did have proper  Exploring people’s attitude and emotion.
technique to advice and motivate them Asking great question is the technique
during the project. At that time, I just that I want more research.
emphasized them to prove them to top  Pointing what the drivers are.
management that they had many skills  Be confident in communication.
such as technique, innovative solution,
and presentation. The lowest position
that attended in this project was Line
Leader. For more details of the
organisation chart in production
hierarchy was Line Leader, Group
Leader, Foreman, Supervisor, Section
Manager, Department Manager
(Japanese), Unit Manager (Japanese),
General Manager (Japanese), and
Managing Director (Japanese and also
company owner).

3.2 When I worked at Korean company and developed quality management system to the entire
company.

Past performing Theoretical guideline

(or gap of opportunity for improvement)
a) Top management’s commitment. a) Top management’s commitment.
Basically, it is not hard to receive the I did not establish the succession plan or
commitment because it is the one of transparent rewarding system. Employees who
requirements that they need to do. However, develop both technical and managerial skills
practically, it depended on how much they should have a better credit for job promotion.
are aware of its benefits. At that time, I Transparent assignment would encourage
received the commitment formally and I used sustainable performance for individuals and
it as a tool for emphasis with the team organisation.
members.

b) Mentee selection. b) Mentee selection.

In this case, the mentees were managers I should establish the succession plan which
from each department. Obviously, the has details about role expectation and
relationship between mentor and mentee was qualification. This could guide everyone to the
formal. new direction which aligns to new perspective
of the quality system.

c) Relationship management c) Relationship management

At the time, trust and friendship was not Theoretically, openness and trust might be key
focused because of less timing – I was a primary factor of mentoring. The mentoring
newcomer and I had to finish the project in process cannot establish effectively without
eight months. As a result, I did a work those factors – even a mentor is willing to
approach rather than relationship approach teach and give everything. After researching,
and hoped the successful outcome would what I had done at this company with the
create trust for everyone. Practically, I am majority of team members was an ineffective
supportive and hard working – facilitative mentoring. Without timeframe limitation, I
leadership – than usual to provide both literal should do as follows;
and practical options to individual decisions.  Create trust; by working with the team
By the way, I knew that I worked for them for a while with simple projects to

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only short period of time. Therefore, I had a create success expertise together.
mentee who could be my substitute. I trained  Start the core project; I should ask
both theoretical and practical knowledge and them what kind of working style they
also tactics how to lead the rest of the team. like and ask for commitment. The result
Eventually, we have become a close friend. may be they want me to propose only
theoretical perspective to them but
discuss with them how they are going
to do in practice.
 Periodical cerebration for minority of
success; because this project had long
period of time, showing reciprocation
might be needed for maintaining
motivation. It could be used as a tool
for gathering team members to create
relationship.

d) Attitude and emotion management

d) Attitude and emotion management In the workplace, my thought was wrong at
At that time, I thought that everyone was in that time. In every circumstances, there are
professional working environment and all my always some persons need help to achieve
team members were the managers. They their goals. As the project leader, I should
should have self-emotional management and notice who my team members were that kind
self-motivation. of person. Body language and facial expression
might help me to figure out their internal
thought.

To conclude, working in different projects and different circumstances could encourage us to know our
opportunities of development. Individual, who is willing to overcome those dilemmas and also has high
working experience, can be valuable leader.

4. Identify three guidelines for practicing (based on personality type)

My personality type is INFJ (from Myers, I.B. & Myers, P.B. 1995) and my strengths are Connector and
Advisor (from StandOut), Building effective team (Carlopio and Andrewartha 2012, p. 43),
Accommodation (from Big Five Theory), Emotional stability – cautious (from Manpower Company).
According to my nominated skill for this semester is mentoring and coaching, I chose to develop
coaching for particular skill. Even my past experience related to mentoring and I am an international
student in Sydney, the most appropriate skill for current practice is coaching in general topics (e.g. life
coach or classmate).

Link between INFJ and Coaching

a) Strengths
According to MBTI, INFJ is strong in perception and inspiration (from intuition) which is good for
coaching. Internal believe drives thought (intuition) and thought drives behaviour, INFJ persons
rely on fact to change their belief before changing their behaviour. INFJ is good for team leading
because they can align assigned goals to a team pattern without making conspicuous. It is
nature of INFJ about human welfare. INFJ pay attention to details, this is good for micro-
analysis during coaching.

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Managing Skills

b) Weaknesses
According to MBTI, be aware of intuition that does not too much focus on work or people but
coaching is art of balancing work and individual perspective. INFJ may have communication
problem. Dislike taking time for precision and telling people some unpleasant things. Like
planning before implementing. Tend to satisfy only people who they are pleasant by judging.

According to the first question that I have left behind on Assignment Part 1, I want to know what INFJ
needs for effective coaching. After analyzing all my personality test results, I chose to improve my
weaknesses (according to INFJ) because I believe that I am not be successful in starting coaching, if I
left it. I made the development plan (see its detail at Appendix A) which was shown as follows;
4.1 Because I have “J” (Judge, according to MBTI), I will be more comfortable, if I understood the
entire of coaching process or even better if I have coaching experience. For my beginning,
research and listing of the general questions within a coaching session might help me predict
most of scenarios and be ready for responses in proper ways.
4.2 However, coaching needs flexibility and adaptation for conversation within session (or
perceptive, according to MBTI). Unfortunately, I am weak at perceptive (but strength in Judge).
I hope mindfulness technique can help me be relaxed and more open-mind. I am going to use
the three-minute breathing space of Hall (2013), which is elaborated at Appendix B, for
practicing. Moreover, I am going to try ten-minute meditating before and after sleeping every
day. I hope this can help me reduce stress and anxiety as well (it is the most weakness of me).
4.3 Because I am a moderate introvert which like being quiet for concentration e.g. for focusing on
listening, especially, when my English speaking and listening skills are weak. To balance with
extraversion, I decided to go to HELPS’s General English Conversation class once a week to
have more social participation, practice my coaching skill, and also practice English
communication skill. Actually, I have attended that class before; there were many issues – such
as personal, academic issues – for discussion. Unfortunately, I have just focused on my English
speaking rather than fixing someone else problems.

5. Unresolved issues for developing in the future time.

1) For more coaching practice; I must need to research more about asking great questions and
understanding body language. This can help understand a coachee’s thought as Max Visser
mentioned at topic 2.2.b.
2) Find opportunities of practicing the mentoring and the sponsorship at a future workplace or with
classmates in the university.
3) Research and develop the technique of managing anxiety and stress which is my crucial weakness.
I know what causes me to be anxious, consequently, be stressful. That is achieving my personal
goal which is the driver of all positive and negative attitude and emotion. Hall (2013, p. 86) showed
a cycle that causes anxiety (see Figure 2).

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Managing Skills

Figure 2: the cycle of anxiety (Hall 2013, p. 86).

There are two ways to reduce anxiety. Firstly, reduce desirability (driver). This is challenging me
because I have passion about what I am planning to do. Lastly, increase self-wellbeing. It seems to
be slightly hard for me because I give high value for what kind of work I want to do. I might need
to research more to overcome anxiety. This would help my coaching practice as well.

Reference

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Managing Skills

Arogundade, O. (2011). MENTORING AND LEADERSHIP SUCCESSION IN INDUSTRIES AND ORGANIZATIONS.

IFE Psychologia, 180-186.

Bennett, J. and Bush, M. (2009). Coaching in Organizations. OD Practitioner, 41(1), 2-7.

Carlopio, J., Andrewartha, G. (2012) ‘Developing Management Skills: A Comprerhensive Guide for Leaders ’, 5th
edn, Pearson Australia: Frenches Forest.

Crabb, S. (2011). The use of coaching principles to foster employee engagement. Coaching Psychologist, 7(1),
27-34.

Dunkley, C., & Palmer, S. (2011). In-session Behaviour Incompatible with Goals (BIG problems) within
coaching. Coaching Psychologist, 7(1), 55-60.

Erik de Hann & Charlotte Sills (2012) ‘Coaching Relationships: The relational coaching field book’, Libri
Publishing, UK.

Graham Guest Consulting (2005), Lifeling learning for engineers: a global perspective, European Journal of
Engineering Education, Vol. 31, No. 3, June 2006, 273-281.

Hall, L. (2013) ‘Mindful Coaching: How Mindfulness Can Transform Coaching Practice ’, Kogan Page Limited, UK.

Hewlett, S.A, Marshall, M., and Sherbin, L., 2011, The Relationship You Need to Get Right, Harvard Business
Review, October 2011, viewed 13 September 2013, <http://hbr.org/2011/10/the-relationship-you-need-to-get-
right/ar/>

Kearns, P. (2006). Does coaching work? Training Journal, 6, 41-44

Leonard-Cross, E. (2010). Developmental coaching: Business benefit -- fact or fad? An evaluative study to
explore the impact of coaching in the workplace. International Coaching Psychology Review, 5(1), 36-47.

Myers, I.B. & Myers, P.B. (1995) ‘Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type’, 1st edn, Davies-Black
Publishing, USA.

Neitlich, A. (2012). 10 Signs You Might Be an Excellent Coach. T+D, 66(11), 70-73.

Ojedokun, A. O. (2011). MENTORING: A FACTOR FOR ORGANISATIONAL MANAGEMENT. IFE Psychologia, 337-
354.

White, S. (2012). Where Mentoring Ends and Sponsorship Begins. Woman Advocate, 17(2), 23-26.

Appendix A

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Appendix B

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Practice: Three-Minute Breathing Space (Hall 2013, p. 96)

Ideally, make sure you’re somewhere where you’re not going to be disturbed the only three minutes), although
this practice can be done anywhere (such as the tube or the toilet before a client meeting!). You can do it
sitting, lying or standing. Adjust your posture so your shoulders are relaxed, jaw loose, back erect but not
arched. Gently close your eyes or gaze softly downwards. Set your motivation or the practice.
In this practice, you start with a wider perspective, then narrow it down to the breath, then back out
again to your whole body/mind, the room and so on. You might like to think of an hourglass an image.

Awareness

So, during this first minute, you take a wider perspective, doing a bit of a ‘weather check’.
What are your thoughts?
What are your feelings?
What are your bodily sensations?

Gathering

During the second minute, take a narrower perspective, focusing on the in and out breaths, gently breathing
without forcing the breaths. Use the breath as an anchor.

Expanding

For this last minute, widen your perspective once again, getting a sense of the whole body, the environment
around you, any sounds, any smells and so on.
Your mind will wander! Just gently bring it back with no judgement, just curiosity. Congratulate
yourself for giving yourself for giving yourself this time.

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