‘The mentees we work with are stuck in their careers in different ways’

What attracted you to the psychology profession?

I discovered a love of learning at secondary school. Many years later, my interest in psychology was piqued whilst serving as a Police Officer. I witnessed, on a daily basis, the myriad troubles people with varying psychological problems experienced… barriers to living their best lives.
 
Later, I felt the need to stretch myself intellectually and decided to enrol to study at the Open University. The various modules in the first-year social science foundation course led to the desire to turn my interest in psychology into a more formal programme of psychological study. Jumping forward six years, I emerged with a First Class Honours Degree in Psychology and I built upon this success by undertaking a two-year Master's Degree in Occupational Psychology at City University in London.

Many more years, of following my passions and growing my psychology knowledge and expertise in the corporate business world, led to where I am today as a Chartered Psychologist. A combination of academic achievement and an appetite for putting myself out of my comfort zone to support my development led to success that I would never have dreamt possible in those early years!

Are there any important lessons you've learnt that have shaped your career and practice as a psychologist?

I did not necessarily set out to reach a particular level in my career when I first started studying at the Open University. However, over the years, I explored what I was passionate about, played to my strengths and continually looked for opportunities to do what I love doing in the workplace. Through a passion for applied psychology, I literally job-crafted my career by focusing on the types of roles that helped me to grow and develop as a psychologist… particularly opportunities to provide me with high-quality continued professional development.  

That said, all has not been plain sailing. I have encountered a fair share of setbacks and challenges along the way. The most important lesson I have learnt from these experiences was to build and maintain my resilience, a strength which has allowed me to bounce back quickly when things have not gone quite as planned.

With an innate curiosity about people and a desire to understand others, I have shaped my career by following my interests in helping individuals to develop and unblock barriers to their success. At the same time, I focused my own development on lifelong learning, continually stretching and developing myself as a psychologist.

I have recently achieved Chartered status as a Coaching Psychologist, almost 20 years to the date that I was first awarded it as an Occupational Psychologist. I can honestly say that, from my early studies with the Open University to the present day, I have been the author of my own psychology career.

You are a passionate coach and coach supervisor. How did you get into coaching and where are you now?

My path into coaching was again inspired by a love of learning, especially the inspiration I gained from studying the career development module of my master's degree. Although my early career started in selection and assessment, my path into coaching was forged when I secured a career development post and, encouraged by my senior managers to gain coaching qualifications, I joined the internal pool of executive coaches, coaching talented senior leaders to progress within their careers.

As my reputation as a coaching psychologist grew, I was invited to design and implement two coaching strategies. The first was a talent coaching strategy in which I included a coach supervision programme and acted as lead coach supervisor for a team of six coach supervisors. The second was a more innovative approach, encouraging everyone to adopt coaching conversations to support each other in day-to-day activities. 

This programme involved train-the-trainer and coach supervision programmes for a team of 40 coaching advocates, who, in turn, trained line managers in conducting and encouraging coaching conversations with individuals and within teams. Since 2020, following an invitation from BPS South West of England Branch (SWB) Chair, Dr Angela Carter, I have designed and implemented a third strategy in my voluntary role as scheme leader of the SWB Coaching and Mentoring Scheme.

Within the psychology profession, research means our knowledge and practice are ever-evolving. How have changes in coaching strategy approaches affected your work?

I became aware of a change in coaching strategy approaches between the time I designed the talent coaching strategy and when I designed the second 'coaching for everyone' strategy. This change expressed itself in the organisation as a call to make coaching conversations available to everyone. 

Coaching for everyone is underpinned by the third-generation coaching approach, where the focus is on collaborative and co-creative conversations (Stelter, 2014). Although research evidence supports the value of coaching cultures in organisations, there has been a lack of evidence, until recently, about how to embed a coaching culture to the benefit of all and not just the talented few (Passmore & Crabbe, 2021).

In addition, as there are many similarities and synergies between coaching and mentoring, and mentoring now increasingly takes place in a coaching world, I drew the evidence base for the SWB Scheme from these similarities and differences, providing the rationale for a coaching and mentoring strategic approach (Garvey, 2014).

Can you share some of the successes of the SWB Scheme?

The scheme has been regularly evaluated, providing overall evidence of its success and impact. During the most recent evaluation in May 2022, mentors and mentees equally reported having derived value and development from the scheme. Further, successfully recruiting two past mentees to train to become mentors, and their positive feedback about their experiences, demonstrated that those with no experience can quickly become effective as long as they are provided with high-quality training and supervision. 

Additionally, one of our mentees was initially focused on pursuing a career in one domain of psychology, but following the insights they gained from the mentoring experience, changed their focus and secured a trainee place in a completely different domain. The following quote from the evaluation study indicates the success of the scheme:

I now have a much clearer understanding of the differences between roles in the psychological profession which has helped me to become clearer with where I am headed.

What are the main challenges of the scheme?

Some of our mentees were not sufficiently equipped with the necessary skills to deal with any obstacles they encountered to achieving the career aspirations they held at university. In the early days, our mentees tended to be making the transition between higher education and employment, but as the scheme has grown, we have attracted mentees who are mature students, or BPS members looking at their options for changing direction within the psychology profession. Whilst there are observed differences between these cohorts, some mentees looking for their first role in psychology have less self-belief and self-efficacy in their ability to achieve their career aspirations than their more experienced peers. 

The common theme which has evolved is that the mentees we work with are stuck in their careers in different ways. Depending on the needs of the mentee, the mentoring process supports strengthening different skills and helps them make decisions they may have been putting off.

Dependency relationships can tend to form in coaching and mentoring. How have you guarded against this?

Firstly, we offer three one-to-one coach mentor sessions over a three-month period, so there is a natural cut-off point.

Also, the objectives of the scheme are to provide sufficient support for the mentees to identify and make progress with their career goals, rather than the coach mentor accompanying them throughout their journey. Further, our coach mentors are trained to point out at the start of the mentoring relationship that the mentees are the authors of their own careers. 

It is not the coach mentors' role to provide answers: rather, their role is to facilitate the mentee's thinking to have the conversations they need to have with themselves, helping them to find the solutions to the problems they face which, in turn, will inform their career decision-making.

You provide coach supervision for your scheme. Tell me more about your offer and the ethical challenges faced?

The regular group supervision sessions adopt an action learning set approach, providing the coach mentors with opportunities to discuss their problems and concerns, gain knowledge and receive feedback through networking with their supervisor and their peers. 

One of the ethical challenges I have faced as the supervisor is not only ensuring that I have put in place a process for quality assurance of the coach mentoring scheme but also providing ongoing support and development to the less experienced coach mentors, as well as stretching developmental opportunities for the more experienced.

I have achieved this by offering ad hoc one-to-one supervision in addition to the group sessions. Access to this supervision proves especially valuable when ethical problems arise where the coach mentor requires support and guidance that cannot wait until the next group supervision meeting.

Other ethical issues are typical of those one would expect in supervision… for example, a coach mentor's concern that their mentee may need counselling, asking advice on operating within the clear boundaries of coaching and counselling and how to sensitively broach the subject and signpost accordingly in the eventuality that counselling would be more appropriate.

I have seen the benefits for the North West Branch through the delegate feedback from our joint event. How have you shared your work?

Over the last two years, I have held a position on the BPS Mentoring Service Steering Group (MSSG). The MSSG's responsibility is to design a new mentoring service and operating platform with a core set of standards, administrative policies and procedures and guidance materials that support multiple society mentoring schemes.

As the SWB Scheme had been designed and implemented before the formation of the MSSG, I was provided with an opportunity to share our successes and lessons learned with my steering group colleagues. In this way, our scheme has informed the design of the wider programme and continues to act as a pilot by being one of the first to transition onto the new BPS Mentoring platform. 

What are your aspirations for 2023?

My personal aspirations for the year are to pay forward my extensive experience, following my passion for coaching individuals to be the best they can be, either to gain clarity around their career interests, goals and next steps, or support individuals and leaders wishing to progress within their careers. In my role as a registered and accredited coach supervisor, my aspiration is to support coaches seeking to obtain a different perspective on their coaching, to gain BPS Chartered Coaching Psychologist status, or accreditation with other coaching accrediting bodies.

In terms of the SWB scheme, my aspirations are to effect a smooth transition onto the BPS Mentoring Service platform. Once the scheme has successfully transitioned, we can then move from a cohort approach to year-round rolling delivery, enabling me to achieve my aspiration of significantly growing our mentor and mentee cohorts.

Also, as we have begun to develop a local coaching and mentoring community in the southwest branch, I would be delighted to share our experiences with other branches interested in setting up their own mentoring schemes. 

Dawn Gosden is Scheme Leader for the South West Branch Coaching and Mentoring Programme.

Mia Pal is Chair of the British Psychological Society's North West Branch.

For more information on the BPS Mentoring Service, contact [email protected]

Key sources

British Psychological Society (2022). Coaching Community and Career Development: A North West and South West Branch Event, Online Webinar, 16th June, 2022
Garvey, B. (2014) Mentoring in a Coaching World. In Cox, E., Bachkirova, T. and Clutterbuck, D. (eds).  The Complete Handbook of Coaching (2nd Ed), pp 362-374. London: SAGE
Passmore, J., & Crabbe, K. (2021). Developing a Coaching Culture in your Organisation, pp 24-35. In J. Passmore (Ed). The Coaches' Handbook – The Complete Practitioner Guide for Professional Coaches. Abingdon: Routledge.
Stelter, R. (2014). A Guide to Third Generation Coaching Narrative-Collaborative Theory and Practice. New York: Springer.