By Dr. Lois J. Zachary, President, Leadership Development Services, LLC
Many leaders, while well intentioned, often are unprepared or underprepared for the mentor role. Many claim the lack of time is the issue. Sure, it’s an issue, but probably not theissue. It is important to remember that taking time to prepare for mentoring ultimately saves time.
How do we know?We’ve conducted hundreds of interviews with organizational leaders who are involved in mentoring relationships. What our research has demonstrated is:
- Leaders who make the time to prepare themselves for their role as mentors report increased self-awareness, confidence, and competence in the role.
- Leaders who make the time for mentoring preparation seem to share a common perspective, commitment, and investment of personal energy.
- Leaders who make the time for mentoring preparation, and see mentoring as a professional responsibility and not as an additional role, make mentoring time a priority.
- Leaders who take the time to prepare expand and deepen individual and organizational learning.
5 Steps for Getting Started
- Consider your personal motivation.It has a direct impact on your behavior and attitude and on the quality of your mentoring interaction.
- Be clear up front about what it is you are looking for in a mentoring relationship. What is driving your decision to participate in a particular mentoring relationship?
- Get comfortable with the mentoring skills you may need to draw on. The more comfortable you are with a skill, the more likely it is you will use it.
- Identify a couple of stretch goals. No matter how many times you have been a mentor, you can always get better at it. Take the time to reflect on your skills and what you need to move from good to great. What is the gap between where you are now and where you want to be?
- Create a mentor development plan for yourself. Identify success criteria and set three milestones to gauge your progress as you develop.
5 Critical Mentoring Skills
- Coaching: Mentors often need to boost a mentee’s present performance to help them gain traction and momentum to realize their future goals.
- Facilitating: Mentors are in the business of facilitating learning. It is the means by which they encourage self-reflection and ownership. Knowing how and when to support and challenge a mentee can unlock the door to future potential for the mentee.
- Listening: Effective mentors are good listeners. It is the No. 1 skill mentees consistently say they value the most in a mentor. A mentor needs to be able to walk in a mentee’s shoes. This is impossible to do without active listening skills.
- Goal Setting: Mentors know that well-defined goals steer the relationship and help it stay the course. Setting goals and developing a work plan to achieve those goals requires time, good conversation, and collaboration.
- Feedback: Mentees rely on mentors for candid and direct feedback. As a mentor, you need to be good at modeling feedback, asking for it, giving it, and receiving it. It will help your mentee make steady progress in the right direction.
Leaders who partner in the shared enterprise of professional development and personal growth of their people must take time to prepare themselves if they are to save time later on. What are you waiting for? Now is always the perfect time to begin.
Dr. Lois J. Zachary is an internationally recognized expert on mentoring. She is president of Leadership Development Services, LLC, a Phoenix-based consulting firm that specializes in leadership and mentoring, and is director of its Center for Mentoring Excellence. She has written nearly half a dozen books about mentoring and has helped organizations including Edward Jones, Ikea, Watson Wyatt Worldwide, and Chicago Public Schools design, create, and improve their mentoring programs.
