29 November 2022

This month, we welcomed Christopher McLaverty to the EMCC UK Board, taking up our newly created role of Director for Mentoring Practice. Christopher, who is a qualified executive coach, management consultant and educator, introduces himself here.

I am delighted to join EMCC UK as the Director for Mentoring Practice. I'm looking forward to helping shape and drive the future of our organisation. This is a brand new role and signals a higher profile for the ‘M’ in EMCC UK. I believe that mentoring has often been perceived as the poor relation of coaching. The effort to professionalise coaching has made a lot of progress (for example in improved training, accreditation and supervision), but mentoring has lagged behind.

There is a paradox at work here: mentoring has been established far longer than coaching in many organisations. It can be more accessible to larger numbers of diverse individuals and teams. It can offer a huge opportunity to transform careers and to develop individuals and teams that might otherwise be excluded.

However, mentoring often relies on volunteers and discretionary effort over and above the day job. It is often so embedded in internal organisation processes that it can be taken for granted and suffer a lack of investment and oversight. The result can be that many organisations have little idea of the benefits of mentoring or how to go about building or improving a mentoring process. I am passionate about making a change in this area.

It is exciting to explore and expand the synergies between coaching and mentoring. Mentors need to be able to access training, accreditation and supervision. Research into best practice, exploring innovation and the impact of technology and AI all have beneficial overlaps between the world of coaching and that of mentoring.

I am also excited to explore and promote some issues that are unique to mentoring. For example: reverse and reciprocal mentoring, expanding mentoring in small and medium sized organisations, cross-cultural mentoring, and how mentoring can contribute to performance management in flatter and non-hierarchical organisations.

I will be working with my colleagues to refine and develop our member proposition to ensure that we continue to provide the services and resources that you value, and that support your coaching and mentoring practice. Your feedback and suggestions will be warmly received.

Contact me by email here: [email protected]