Mentoring - Maintaining a Valuable Relationship

As a leader, how do you sustain a learning relationship with your mentor?

Securing the right mentor is a major hurdle, but maintaining the relationship can be just as challenging. To keep the mentoring relationship going, try these three things:

• Provide structure. Set up regular meetings with agendas so your conversations don't degenerate into aimless chitchat. Make sure each meeting moves you toward your goals.
• Expect rigor. If your mentor doesn't provide regular assignments, ask for them, and work them into your agenda.  You have a mentor for learning so ensure that the learning occurs.
• Know when to move on. Once you've achieved your goals, move on before the law of diminishing returns kicks in. But stay in touch. Your mentor may become a valuable supporter of your 'leader learning' even once your formal relationship ends.

Adapted from Guide to Getting the Mentoring You Need (HBR OnPoint Collection).

How are You Unique as a Leader?

As a leader, what is it that makes your leadership unique?

To be successful as a leader, you need to know your strengths and what special skills and qualities you bring to your role. If you can't articulate them, you can't expect others to see them either. Here's a four-step process to identifying what makes your leadership great:

• List your strengths. Include skills and knowledge you've acquired through experience and education as well as softer intrinsic strengths, such as insightfulness or empathy.
• Ask for input. Ask colleagues for honest feedback - either directly or anonymously.  Just be sure to hear from those you lead.
• Revisit past feedback. Reread old performance appraisals or think back on coaching experiences.  Have you grown in these areas?  How? 
• Modify your list. Adjust your original list to reflect what you've learned. Make sure the strengths are specific so that they are credible and useful.

Adapted from "Five Steps to Assess Your Strengths" by Bill Barnett.

Delegating Tasks to Build Staff Capacity

As a leader, do you delegate tasks to staff in the hope to build their capacity?

In a desire to share / distribute leadership, have you ever delegated a task to a staff member,....and somehow it ended up back on your plate?  Beware of this "reverse delegation."  Staff members who are unsure how to do something may enlist you in doing it for them.  Don't automatically solve problems or make decisions for hesitant colleagues.  Focus on generating alternative solutions together, making sure your colleague maintains responsibility for carrying through with the task.  Don't fall for it when others make statements like, "You'll do a better job with this."  While flattering, and possibly even true, they are often a way to get you involved when you needn't be....and how do you build capacity among your staff...if people feel they can - or should - default to you?

Support your staff members with tasks that 'stretch' them.  Many will discover that they have much more capacity than they realized.  They'll discover that their talents are greater than they realized.  But just in case.....don't be too far away.  They may need some coaching or mentoring along the way.  They'll feel reassured and more willing to take on challenges in the future if they know that you believe they can do it AND you're close by 'just in case'. 

Adaped from: Guide to Project Management (Harvard Business Review)

Mentoring or Coaching - Part 2

As a leader, do you engage in coaching? Do you support your staff in receiving coaching?

As mentioned in the previous post, the terms 'mentoring' and 'coaching' are often used interchangeably but research literature differentiates between the two.  The difference between mentoring and coaching needs to be understood if we wish to use the terms correctly.

It's coaching if:

• the coach has been trained in a specific style of coaching and uses it at all times while coaching
• the coachee has a learning plan which forms the basis of the coaching conversations
• the coaching conversations are intended to support the coachee in the development of identified skills
• the coach mediates the thinking of the coachee
• reflective thinking is routinely incorporated into the coaching conversations to deepen the learning
• the coaching conversations are focused on the growth of the coachee
• the coach does not talk about him/herself.  It's always about the coachee.
• there is a time limit to the coaching relationship

Adapted from 'Coaching For Learning' - York Region District School Board

Mentoring and Coaching - Part 1

As a leader, do you have a mentor?  Do you support your staff in working with mentors? 

The terms 'mentoring' and 'coaching' are often used interchangeably but research literature differentiates between the two.  Mentoring is defined as a broad range of supports for individuals transitioning into new roles.  Mentoring is often a long-term relationship between a less-experienced person and a mentor who is well-experienced.  Coaching, on the other hand, is a formal and intentional process designed to focus on a coachee's learning needs and is led by a trained coach. 

Mentoring can be an invaluable support because individuals often choose their own mentors and maintain the relationships over a long period of time.  Below are a few suggestions about mentors over the life of a career.  These suggestions below are adapted from: "Keeping Great People with Three Kinds of Mentors" by Anthony Tjan.

• Peer mentors. In the early stages of a person's career, a mentor can help speed up the learning curve. This relationship helps the mentee understand how things work at the organization.
• Career mentors. After the initial period at a workplace, employees need to have a senior staff member serve as a career advisor and advocate.
• Life mentors. A life mentor serves as a periodic sounding board when one is faced with a career challenge. Organizations can't necessarily offer a life mentor but they can encourage seeking one.

Now that you have the position

You now have the leadership position.  But do you have the skills?

As a leader, you have a formal leadership role.  But formal leadership roles demand a set of skills that you may not necessarily have.  People frequently are promoted because they were exemplary in their position.  However, this doesn't automatically translate into having the skills required in a leadership role.  As a leader, can you identify the necessary skill sets for your position?  When that's done, can you then identify which of these skill sets you have, which skill sets you don't have, and which ones you are developing?  Once this 'gap analysis' has been done, you have some important thinking to do about how you will build the skills that you need in your role.  In other words, what do you need to learn and how will you learn it?  Every great leader is also a great learner.  Leadership demands learning and continual refinement of the skills of leadership.  What is your plan to be a great leader? 

Here is a list of just some of the skill sets that great leaders have:

• setting direction for the work of your staff
• building purposeful, authentic relationships...and then sustaining them
• knowing how to motivate people
• knowing how to handle difficult conversations while maintaining the integrity of staff members
• problem-solving
• supporting each member of your staff in building their capacity to do the work
• coaching and mentoring.....and knowing the difference
• planning for succession and ensuring that there are always others who can carry on the work
• being accountable
• taking responsibility
• identifying the focus of the work and supporting staff in keeping the focus
• dealing with distracters so that they don't impact on your staff
• distributing / sharing leadership with others
• ...and the list goes on....

Habits of Mind & Leading

As a leader, do you invoke the habits of mind in your leadership? 

Habits of Mind:  modelling, coaching, scaffolding, articulation, reflection, exploration

Modelling - Modelling of leadership behaviours.  If we want others to be leaders, we need to demonstrate what leadership looks like.

Coaching - Helping others to think through what they are trying to do.  Teachers raise questions with each other rather than telling others what to do.

Scaffolding - Providing the content bridges necessary for the task, raising the necessary questions, and giving others, particularly new teachers, the opportunities to explore and perform the task.

Articulation - Explaining what you are thinking about so that thinking is visible to colleagues, parents, and students.

Reflection - Being reflective and thoughtful about the work.  Raising evaluation questions:  What went well today?  Why?  If I did this again, how would I do it differently?

Exploration - Modelling risk taking so others understand that uncertainty is involved in all new learning.



From:  Leadership Capacity for Lasting School Improvement by Linda Lambert
Published by: ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development)