Serving as a Mentor

As a leader, do you offer to mentor new or inexperienced leaders?

An important role for any leader is the mentoring of new or inexperienced leaders.  It provides a great service to someone who is in the exact same spot you were at one time.....but it also helps you.

Mentoring a new leader is simply the right thing to do.  Somewhere along the line, someone believed in you and supported your move into leadership.  One form of paying back this kindness is to mentor another.  New leaders need individuals whom they can trust so they can share their uncertainties in difficult times and gain some solid knowledge from someone like you who simply has more experience in the role.

More than being the right thing to do, mentoring a new leader can help you too.  Your mentee gives you insight into how people are feeling and thinking in the workplace.  You may have forgotten what it's like to be new in a role and a bit unsure of yourself.  Providing a safe and confidential forum for discussion helps you build your understanding of others.  Further, mentoring helps you learn how to build capacity in others.  A key role for a leader is building capacity in your staff.  Mentoring gives you a chance to practise and hone your skills. 

The Questions Every Leader Should Ask

As a leader, are you asking questions that can bring about improvement?

Asking the right questions is an essential skill of any leader. Yet many fail to inquire enough. Here are three types of questions you should be asking:

• Questions about yourself. Good leaders ask themselves and others about what they could do better. Ask in a way that invites constructive, candid responses and allows those to respond to feel safe about responding.
• Questions about plans and projects. These should both advance the work and develop the people. Tough and direct questions are OK, as long as they are in the interest of progress.  Better yet, ask questions that inquire and stimulate thinking.  For example, 'What was it about this approach that seemed the best approach?' ......or......'What might be some ways we could measure our results?'  When you ask a 'What might....' or 'How might...' question, you are opening up thinking.  Try it and see what happens.
• Questions about the organization. Look for ways that the organization can function more effectively by questioning practices, processes, and structures. Ask: Why do we do things this way? Is there a better approach?  You need to ask yourself these questions first.  In the right setting, these are great questions to ask your staff....but ask them when people can respond as groups...until the culture exists where staff understand that you really want to know what works best and you're not testing them.

Adapted from "The Art of Asking Questions" by Ron Ashkenas.