Mentoring and Systemic Team Development.

There is increasing recognition within the field of team coaching, that from a systemic perspective, a team can only be effective if it works within a team of teams framework. In line with the work carried out on Teaming (Edmondson) and recent publications on coaching “Teams of Teams” (Hawkins and Carr), the challenge then comes how leaders can enable the broader system to work together effectively in practice through coaching and supporting one another.

One key – and often overlooked – methodology is mentoring.

Mentoring has been shown to be an impactful method to strengthen the corporate culture, share knowledge about how the unit ticks, deepen relationships across the organisation, and, in the best case, reduce employee fluctuation.

If you are looking to find a way to enable a teaming approach and build a team of teams, then mentoring is an excellent and cost-effective way to anchor and develop a coaching culture in your organisation.

Unfortunately, mentoring is often seen as a cheap and quick approach to replace (or  even to save on) leadership development programmes, with a “pair and pray” matching of mentors and mentees and then seeing what happens. Or, typically, what does not.

A new book hopes to set the record straight on how to effectively implement a mentoring programme: Mentoring in Action, A Guide to Success, edited by Julie Haddock-Millar, David Clutterbuck and Chandana Sanyal (Routledge, 2026).

We have contributed a case study to this work, which seeks to demonstrate how a structured, consistent approach to mentoring leads to an impactful change in leadership behaviours and embeds a culture of coaching across an organisation.

In our contribution, we focused on preparing, supporting and supervising the Mentors in their role – aspects of the process which are often overlooked as the assumption is that a leader “knows what to do”.

If you start from the perspective that mentoring should be a “two-way street” and that the mentors should be open to learn and reflect on their own behaviours, then it makes sense to prepare and support the mentors during the process, as well as in evaluating the impact.

Through this case study, based on our practical experience of working with a German DAX30 automotive manufacturer, we illustrate how a combination of training, materials and mentor supervision supports mentors and deepens the learning experience for them.

We still ask ourselves, given the potential impact of mentoring in enabling a team of teams approach and systemic change, why many organisations hesitate to implement mentoring. Is it because mentoring is not the next, “shiny thing” for HR? Is it a challenge to engage senior business leaders in mentoring? Or, simply, has it not been on your radar?

Do get in touch if you have any questions on mentoring!