Coaching Makes Nurses’

By: Maureen Habel, RN, MA
Coaching is not the same as mentoring or precepting. In precepting, the primary focus is to orientation employee to a new position and socialize the employee into the culture of the healthcare organization. The precepting relationship focuses on task accomplishment (about 75%) with a small psychosocial interpersonal component (about 25%).
Mentoring is typically an exclusive, long-term relationship for nurses who want to move forward in a nursing leadership roleor want to become a clinical expert after advanced education.3Mentoring is one of the most complex people-related skills because it rarely focuses on tasks (about 10%). Rather, it is an intensely psychosocial relationship (about 90%) in which the mentor helps the protégé learn more complex ways of thinking and problem solving.4 In most cases, the mentor is an experienced nurse leader, not the nurse’s immediate supervisor.
Coaching, on the other hand, is geared to all nursing staff to improve work performance and toenhance continuousprofessional development.5 Coaching is a continuous, two-way process in which an immediate manager and a direct report share knowledge and experience to enhance the direct report’s potential and to help the direct report achieve agreed-upon goals. The two key components in coaching are an immediate supervisor (coach) willing to invest time and energy into the development of the employee (coachee) and an employee open to development.4 Coaching doesn’t focus on instructing staff to do tasks and specify how to do them. The goal of coaching is to help staff to learn new skills, to become involved in novel situations, and to learn from the decisions they make.
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