Successful organizations constantly renew their leadership pipeline. They mentor and develop their people, so they'll have a cadre of talented individuals ready and able to successfull assume key leadership positions as they come open.
In his book, Mentoring, Gordon Shea says "Mentoring is a relationsip in which a person with greater experience, expertise and wisdom counsels, teaches, guides and helps another person develop -- both personally and professionally".
Sounds like quite a challenge. But mentoring, like most leadership activities, can be broken down into a few common sense principles...
First of all, mentoring is a relationship -- a very special relationship that needs to be:
- Based on truth, trust and mutual respect
- Grounded by a joint purpose
- Mutually beneficial
- Graceful
Let's look at each of these in more detail.
Truth, Trust, Respect
Trust is difficult to establish and easy to lose. Therefore, mentors need to be consistent in what they say and do. The best mentoring relationships are characterized by three things: 1) open, honest communication, 2) integrity on the part of both parties and 3) consideration and courteous regard for one another. The mentor needs to accept errors and mistakes as not only necessary, but as a prerequiste for learning.
Mary Kay Ash once said, "honesty is the conrnerstone of all success. Without honesty, confidence and the ability to perform cease to exist". This is very true for mentoring relationships.
Joint Purpose
Every effective mentoring relationship has an overarching reason for existing. In some cases, the relationship has been formally sanctioned by the organization as a means to the end of developing future leaders. In others, it is an agreement in which two people see the value in working together. The mentor recognizing raw talent that needs to be developed and the mentee realizing that the mentor is someone from whom he or she can learn and grow.
This joint purpose grounds the relationship. It provides alignment. Therefore, the best mentoring relationships are ones which begin with an explicit recognition of the relationship. Some leaders I know prefer to mentor people informally. Unfortunately, this informal mentoring is not always recognized for what it is, and the person being mentored experiences the attention from the senior person as unwelcome, unwanted and unneeded. A few minutes spent discussing the purpose of a mentoring relationship provides the alignment necessary for success.
Mutually Beneficial
This is key. Both parties get something out of a successful mentoring relationships. The person being mentored has the opportunity not only to learn and grow, but to accelrate his or her learning curve. On the other hand, the mentor should get a sense of personal satisfaction out of helping the other person learn and grow. Also, teahcing is one of the best ways to codify the knowledge you have. Successful mentors report that the mentoring experience helped them make explicit a lot of the implicit knowledge they have.
There are a few prerequisties for a mentoring relationship to be mutually benficial. 1) Neither person should take the other for granted. 2) Mentors must have a giving oreintation. They need to truly enjoy helping others learn and grow. 3) Mentees must be willing to reach out, grasp and use the wisdom imparted by the mentor.
Graceful
Mentoring should not be a struggle. It should be as graceful as a Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers dance. Graceful mentoring relationships are based on three things. 1) Both parties work as equals, contributing ideas freely. Mentors give mentees the freedom and opportunity to apply the wisdom and knowledge they impart as the mentee sees fit. 2) Problems must be addressed head on, and resloved with minimal upset to the relationship -- this is why an atmosphere of truth, trust and respect is so important to a mentoring relationship. 3) Both parties need to be in tune with one another. Both need to demonstrate empathy. In the best mentoring relationships, both parties anticipate and meet the needs of each other.
That's it for today. Thanks for reading. Log on to my website www.BudBilanich.com for more common sense leadership advice.
I'll see you around the web, and at Alex's Lemonade Stand.
Bud
PS What have YOU done for your career today?
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