Create a competitive advantage through coaching, mentoring

However, it is imperative that for a company to secure its short and long term health, it ensures it has both a good leader and a strong management team. Equally important to remember is that organisations don't necessarily have to look outside for their future leaders and managers. Kelly's marketing executive, Kim Meszaros says few companies leverage mentoring as part of their HR strategy. Mentoring is one of the most powerful tools a company has at its disposal to develop both managers and leaders, and in the process, to create a competitive advantage.

Difference between coaching and mentoring

Mentoring is a respected method of conveying skills, culture and values between individuals, but it is an art that has lost favour over the centuries to coaching. Mentoring and coaching are not synonymous. Just as there is a clear distinction between leadership and management, so too do mentoring and coaching each have a role within a company. Coaching tends to be focused on improvement in specific work behavior and processes. Whereas a coach's role is to provide structure, foundation and support to encourage people to self-generate results - ideal for grooming managers - a mentor is generally an expert in a field or industry who provides a power free, two-way mutually beneficial learning situation, ideal for nurturing a potential leader and broad-based ideas.

Leaders must work with managers

As are both coaching and mentoring vital for organisations, good managers are equally as important as good leaders. "Both leaders and managers are essential for effective corporate growth," says Meszaros. Leaders can be seen as visionaries, but it is vital that leaders learn from and work together with managers to turn opportunities into tangible results. Meszaros also highlights the importance of managers to reinforce new office cultures and visions throughout the business.

"From a strategic perspective, it makes sense to nurture these leaders and managers from within. For a business to become more productive, and to be able to differentiate itself through innovation, it needs to not only have the right training tools in place, but it also needs to have the right people in place within both its leadership and management structure to facilitate this training and to embrace the challenges of operating in a volatile business environment," concludes Meszaros.