Mentoring is an age-old relationship where a wise and trusted adviser develops a younger and less-experienced individual. Mentoring can significantly accelerate the development of leaders and the passing on of organisational intelligence, and also prevent the repetition of past mistakes.
Date: Jun 20, 2011 Author: Andrew Bryant
Keywords: Mentoring, Leadership
Mentoring is an age-old relationship where a wise and trusted adviser develops a younger and less-experienced individual. Mentoring can significantly accelerate the development of leaders and the passing on of organisational intelligence, and also prevent the repetition of past mistakes.
An effective mentoring relationship has a three-fold benefit for mentor, mentee and the organisation. The mentor experiences a level of satisfaction – even self-actualisation – when passing on hard-earned wisdom. In addition to the mentor further developing their own leadership skills, the act of mentoring someone develops listening skills and creates insight as to how people grow or are hindered within the organisation.
The mentee gains valuable guidance and support to focus on their professional development; they will be challenged by the mentor’s questions to think and act in new ways ensuring their success.
Mentoring benefits the organisation by ensuring a pipeline of leadership talent through fostering the sharing and retention of knowledge, and attracting and retaining key talent.
So mentoring is a good investment for all concerned, and yet a Gallup study showed that very few companies had any formal mentoring programmes in place. Plus, it is my experience that most current leaders, whilst tactically very proficient, have themselves received little or no mentoring or mentor training. Furthermore mentoring requires a “culture” that supports the process or it can be perceived as an ECA (extracurricular activity) and not given the commitment required.
All cultures start from the top down, so in a mentoring culture each mentor will have received mentoring and/or will have been trained in the philosophy and skills of mentoring. In addition, mentoring will be valued by the organisation on par with business acumen and competence. Mentors will be acknowledged by the organisation and recognised for the important role they play in achieving a learning environment.
An effective mentoring culture recognises that managers and leaders are accountable for both “getting the job done” and developing people.
As Lao Tsu said: “A leader is best when people barely know he exists. Not so good when people obey him and acclaim him, and worse when they despise him. Fail to honour people and they will fail to honour you. Of a great leader, when his work is done, people will say, ‘We did it ourselves’.”
