Getting Mentors to Support Your Learning from a Variety of Perspectives

As a leader, are you accessing mentors who can provide you with a variety of perspectives?

Many of the jobs that Baby Boomers will vacate over the next two decades will go to up-coming new leaders.  The right mentors can help you improve the quality of your learning along the way. Consider contacting the following types of people to serve as your mentors:

• A senior executive with experience in an area where your school/organization is focusing. These people can help you develop a big-picture mind-set.
• A high-performing peer. Gain a broader perspective within your field by asking a highly-effective peer to be a mentor for you.
• A person whom you serve. . Get into your parents' / clients' shoes and see how the school/organization looks from the standpoint of those being served by it.

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

Are you Mentoring? If not, why not?

As a leader, are you mentoring the next generation of leaders?

It's rewarding to become a mentor and it's a role that every leader should take on. But you can't take every young, aspiring leader under your wing. Ask yourself these three questions to choose the right protégé:

• How motivated is the mentee? Assess the reasons for the junior person's drive to become a leader. Your mentee has to be motivated if you're going to have a successful relationship.  Do your values align? 
• How far is there to go? Where is the mentee in terms of experience versus where she wants to be? You should take someone on with developmental gaps that you can help fill.
• Do I have the relevant experience and time? You never want to shortchange a mentoring relationship. Be sure you can effectively support the mentee in terms of knowledge and effort.  Remember, you're 'serving' them....so be ready to provide the time, energy, and skills needed to help.

Adapted from "Get the Mentoring Equation Right" by Whitney Johnson.

Committing to Continuous Personal Growth

As a leader, how have you committed to continuous personal growth?

Early in your career, you may ask mentors to help you with specific skills. But as you face mid-career challenges, you need mentoring that's tailored to your individual strengths and learning goals. And, you need mentors who can increase your access to leader-learning opportunities. Work with advisers who can help you take the skills you've honed in your current role and apply them to broader challenges in order to increase your effectiveness. Attract these mentors by demonstrating your experience and articulating your eagerness and commitment to continuous personal growth.



Adapted from Guide to Getting the Mentoring You Need (Harvard Business Review Press).

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).

Mentoring - Getting the Right Start

As a leader, do you take advantage of mentoring to build and refine your skills?

Leaders need mentors.  Few of us can truly be as effective as we'd like without a solid mentoring relationship in place.  Once you've secured a mentor, kick off the relationship the right way. Here are three things you can do as a mentee to help create a successful partnership:

• Get to know your mentor. Don't immediately ask for advice. Take the time to acquaint yourself with your mentor. Ask questions about her experience and working style, and share in return.
• Air concerns. You may be nervous about admitting your mistakes and fears. Establish an expectation of confidentiality up front, and remember this discretion should be mutual.
• Set milestones. To gauge progress, set goals and chart a path to achieve them. To expedite the process, draft a list of milestones and ask your mentor for feedback.

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

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. 

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....