A520.7.4.CM - Developmental Coaching Process

Write a blog entry on the significance, importance, and/or impact of having a coach and/or a mentor to help you in your professional journey.

When I think of a mentor or coach that has given me the support to become a better student affairs professional and a better person, I think of one particular women who has always supported my growth and development. She was my supervisor as a student worker at Ohio University. I was a Resident Assistant with the Department of Residential Housing when I met her, and her very presence was powerful. She is a tall, stocky woman with a short hair cut and hers eyes told two options of existence; she could either be the greatest soldier on your side, or a devastating woman to be at odds with.

She supervised the newest residential hall on campus, named in honor of the first Black graduate of the school's illustrious journalism program. As a minority journalism student, I was not only impressed by the story of this man (who was a founding member of one the university's historically-black fraternities, Kappa Alpha Psi, and the founder of the Multicultural Genealogical Center in Ohio), but the story of the woman who managed the building bearing his name. Raised in Detroit, to say she appreciated and understood diversity is an understatement. She was very vocal about being a lesbian, being from a struggling environment, and being someone who refused to play into the tradition of ignoring privilege and blaming the oppressed. She was a leader who empowered, and it was well-known that she only wanted the best of the best RAs working with her. It was also rumored that she hand-picked candidates through a thorough investigation of not only their grades and verification of every campus involvement claim, but their social media presence, and campus and community reputation from faculty, staff, students and anyone else she could get a word or two from. It would seem that whatever tactics she used worked; only those with RAs with the best grades, who exemplified profound leadership and wanted a challenged worked for her. She was know to kick ass and take names with the students who were silly enough to put their hall residency status on the line, clean house within staff if necessary, and build the best, most cohesive teams throughout the 16 or so RA staffs throughout the campus' three residential greens. RAs in this hall were supported by each other, their boss, and appreciated and respected by their students. They were present in all campus-wide activities with their staff, even if it had nothing to do with work. I wanted that type of experience, and though I loved my supervisor at the time, I knew working for this woman would strengthen me as a student leader.

Hauser (2009) discusses in Evidence-Based Coaching the executive coaching system, which is used to expand, strengthen, and optimize the coachee’s leadership capabilities, competencies, and confidence within organizational context. It has three main components: insight, the understanding of one’s developmental needs; motivation, the willingness to invest the time and energy required for needed self-development; and accountability, the internal and external mechanisms monitoring change and providing meaningful consequences. As someone from a similar upbringing, I realized during my first year of college that though I held a high level of resilience but I had a hard time picking my battles. I needed to have someone who I could toss around my life's goals with. My first year at Ohio University as an out-of state student within several niche populations made me the target of a lot of prejudice. There were constant attacks on my intelligence - assumptions of why I qualified for a full-ride, and anger at the institution's recruitment of minority students and the support of first-generation college students were communicated often - and I considered leaving the University quite often. Furthermore, students at the institution were generally ignorant of their insensitive actions (there were several racially-discriminatory social activities, such as a rather infamous "I Have a Dreamsicle" party on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day weekend, in which white students donned blackface). Whereas in an urban environment, it is normal to lash out, my inability to do so caused me to bottle up a lot of anger. Though I had become involved in organizations that gave me the power to address such events, inside I felt inferior because it was seemingly a never-ending process of protecting my identity. I never felt like I had someone I could talk to honestly about the events, take those experiences and formulate them into a professional lifelong mission statement. I was not sure if I could keep my passions under control as I went into the professional world. 

My supervisor, who our staff called "Boss Lady," was a woman of passions. She and I would talk every week at our one-on-ones about how to use my Resident Assistant job to release stress and display my passions. Through passive and active programming, recruiting my residents to go to organizational meetings with me, and putting my life story out on the table, I was able to show who I was without feeling like a defender of every group I represented. She supplied me with books and articles to review and tie them into our conversations. She had a great thumb on the campus environment and helped to connect me with professors and students who were talking about the things I talked about, and always assured that I would converse with those who had diverse thoughts. A Forbes article titled The Impact of Mentors notes an important aspect of leadership: Focus on the stuff that makes a difference (Portnoy, 2012). I came to her with the challenge of teaching me professional resilience. She could have solely focused on developing my ability to formally dispute with others and defend my passions, but she was quite direct in noting that, at some point, my beliefs will undoubtedly be wrong. She challenged me to befriend those who she knew I would not see eye to eye with on every topic, but coached me to see value in perspectives different than my own. This is how she created great teams. I appreciated how attentive she was to every staff member, making us all feel like we had a bond with her that was unique and unspoken. There was never a need to compete for her admiration. Her leadership style throughout the staff was one of a developer. She saw no individual as fully formed; I believe she saw her staff as great, but also as a constant work in progress, alive with possibilities. Students drew toward her just as much as she did them, for this very reason. Her mission was to help us experience success through challenging us to do more than the minimum, to do it exceptionally, and to enjoy the extra time and effort. There is a process to seeing people change, and she was patient but took very few excuses; however, she celebrated our little steps in the right direction.

Director and actor Tyler Perry wrote, “what I've found about it is that there are some folks you can talk to until you're blue in the face--they're never going to get it and they're never going to change. But every once in a while, you'll run into someone who is eager to listen, eager to learn, and willing to try new things. Those are the people we need to reach. We have a responsibility as parents, older people, teachers, people in the neighborhood to recognize that.” Mentoring is the ability to listen more than speak, yet still aid people to solving their own problems. This is even more necessary in the workplace, as the average worker spends thirty-two percent of their total waking hours during the average working lifetime of forty-six years. Why not be the best person one can be by being a lifelong learner about everyone's favorite topic - themselves? Emelo notes in his study of virtual mentorship, that eighty-eight percent of business-provided mentoring users agreed that their productivity increased due to mentoring, and 97 percent of users who spent at least one hour per month on mentoring were satisfied with their experience (Emelio, 2011). Since her and my eventual departure from the University, she has still been a resource for professional development; through social media and random phone calls of highlights and challenges, I feel like she is always inspiring me, though we live thousands of miles apart.

It was because of her influence that I began to realize - as a third-year journalism student - that I wanted to impact student leaders as a career. I did not want to simply report on the happenings of the world; I wanted to make them happen. Though I continue to write and have a desire to work within the news industry, my mission statement is to assure that the leaders of tomorrow's wide expanse of industries will be scrubbed of their social prejudices before having the money and title to perpetuate -isms, and to make progressing equality for all a lifeline goal. I believe that working in higher education gives me the opportunity to do this.

References

Emelo, R. (2011). CREATING A NEW mindset: Guidelines for mentorship in today's workplace. T + D,    65(1), 44-49. Retrieved from  http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/docview/846785033?accountid=27203
Hauser, L. (2009). Evidence-based coaching: A case study. OD Practitioner, 41(1), 8-13. Accessed  at http://www.coachfederation.org/files/includes/docs/149-ODP-Hauser-Rev2-Final.pdf

Portnoy, Eli. (2012). The Impact of Mentors. Forbes. Accessed at  http://www.forbes.com/sites/eliportnoy/2012/08/17/the-impact-of-mentors/