Mentoring – The Mantra To Help People Win
EmPower Research
July 10, 2008
By T Harish
Having a mentor is like having a compass. The choice ultimately depends on the direction one takes. The relationship established between two individuals where knowledge, skills and experience are shared is mentoring. Successful mentoring can bring about a drastic change in organisational working and culture. It can also help in opening up the atmosphere where learning abounds both for the experienced and inexperienced alike.
The protégé is someone seeking guidance in developing specific competencies, awareness, and skills in a specific area. The mentor is a person who not only has the expertise in those areas but also has the ability to share this expertise in a nurturing manner.
Guru-Shishya tradition
The roots of this concept can be traced back to Ulysses who entrusted the care of his son, Telemachus, when he set out to war. Mentor was Ulysses' wise and trusted counselor as well as a tutor to Telemachus. His name has become the synonym for a wise and trusted counselor and teacher. The guru-shishya tradition practiced in Hinduism and Buddhism, the discipleship system practiced by Rabbinical Judaism and the Christian church, and apprenticing under the medieval guild system all fall under mentorship. Some of the famous mentor-protégé pairs include the great Socrates and Plato, Plato and Aristotle, Aristotle and Alexander the Great, Benjamin Mays and Martin Luther King, Jr., Diana Ross and Michael Jackson and Krishna and Arjuna.
In this relationship, the protégé has the opportunity to ask questions, share concerns, and observe a more experienced professional within a safe, protected environment. Through reflection and collaboration with the mentor, the protégé can become more self-confident and competent in integrating and applying the knowledge and skills gained thus demonstrating the best practices.
Setting an example
A very essential quality for a mentor is good listening skills. As a mentor, one must not only listen and understand what is being said but also be able to understand what has not been said overtly... One should never be overbearing or preachy. The next important quality is sound technical know-how. The mentor ideally is in a position between the boss and the teacher. A mentor is someone who sets an example through his own actions. Hence a mentor should have excellent interpersonal skills. All these qualities help the mentor to bring the best in his protégée.
It is important to stress that though a mentoring relationship is usually focused on molding the protégée there are many benefits for the mentor which include development of their own skills and increased job satisfaction reflecting on their own role and experiences. One might think that mentoring would be very time-consuming process, but this is not so. A mentor and the protégée can work out the amount of time they can spare from the outset.
In recent years, in the management and human resources literature, the term mentor, which is a noun, has become a verb as well and -- with or without "ing" as an appendage -- now refers to the patterned behaviors or process whereby one person acts as mentor to another.
Formal and informal mentoring
There are two types of mentoring relationships: formal and informal. Informal relationships develop on their own between partners. Formal mentoring, on the other hand, refers to assigned relationships, often associated with organizational mentoring programs designed to promote employee development.
In well-designed formal mentoring programs, there are program goals, schedules, training (for mentors and protégée), and evaluation.
Mentoring is also used to groom new employees deemed to have the potential to move up into leadership roles. Here the employee is paired with a senior level leader for a series of career-coaching interactions. A mentor does not have to be a manager or supervisor to facilitate the process. Some organizations encourage their employees to take up mentoring by offering them incentives and awards. Training institutes are also sending interns into companies after appointing mentors to assist them. This has made mentoring a buzzword that has brought attitudinal changes that are far-reaching.
Deepening the understanding
The key to personal and organizational success is the sense of purpose and the ability to be purposeful. Mentoring can be a highly effective means of evoking purposefulness and generating high levels of motivation and corporate intent. Increasingly organizations need to be able to continuously reinvent themselves to stay aligned with and responsive to the needs of their customers and other stakeholders. . Creating the necessary changes can involve a wide range of programs and initiatives such as cultural change, process re-engineering, benchmarking, total quality management, values alignment, and so forth. All these can be successful only if they are accompanied by behavioral change in the stake holders in the senior executives in particular. Executive mentoring is an intervention designed to support such senior executives and other key staff in making the necessary behavioral changes.
Living our purpose consistently is a profound challenge. It requires high levels of self-awareness, a firm commitment, a strong sense of our own self-worth, a willingness to take risks, and the emotional discipline to travel outside our comfort zone. In essence, it is important that we develop the skills of self-leadership. The role of the mentor in this is to help the protégée to continually deepen their understanding of reality, develop their sense of self, learning to listen to what is emerging, and to encourage them to live their purpose.
References:
managementhelp.org
wikipedia.org
hinduonnet.com
mentoringforchange.co.uk
Having a mentor is like having a compass. The choice ultimately depends on the direction one takes. The relationship established between two individuals where knowledge, skills and experience are shared is mentoring. Successful mentoring can bring about a drastic change in organisational working and culture. It can also help in opening up the atmosphere where learning abounds both for the experienced and inexperienced alike.
The protégé is someone seeking guidance in developing specific competencies, awareness, and skills in a specific area. The mentor is a person who not only has the expertise in those areas but also has the ability to share this expertise in a nurturing manner.
Guru-Shishya tradition
The roots of this concept can be traced back to Ulysses who entrusted the care of his son, Telemachus, when he set out to war. Mentor was Ulysses' wise and trusted counselor as well as a tutor to Telemachus. His name has become the synonym for a wise and trusted counselor and teacher. The guru-shishya tradition practiced in Hinduism and Buddhism, the discipleship system practiced by Rabbinical Judaism and the Christian church, and apprenticing under the medieval guild system all fall under mentorship. Some of the famous mentor-protégé pairs include the great Socrates and Plato, Plato and Aristotle, Aristotle and Alexander the Great, Benjamin Mays and Martin Luther King, Jr., Diana Ross and Michael Jackson and Krishna and Arjuna.
In this relationship, the protégé has the opportunity to ask questions, share concerns, and observe a more experienced professional within a safe, protected environment. Through reflection and collaboration with the mentor, the protégé can become more self-confident and competent in integrating and applying the knowledge and skills gained thus demonstrating the best practices.
Setting an example
A very essential quality for a mentor is good listening skills. As a mentor, one must not only listen and understand what is being said but also be able to understand what has not been said overtly... One should never be overbearing or preachy. The next important quality is sound technical know-how. The mentor ideally is in a position between the boss and the teacher. A mentor is someone who sets an example through his own actions. Hence a mentor should have excellent interpersonal skills. All these qualities help the mentor to bring the best in his protégée.
It is important to stress that though a mentoring relationship is usually focused on molding the protégée there are many benefits for the mentor which include development of their own skills and increased job satisfaction reflecting on their own role and experiences. One might think that mentoring would be very time-consuming process, but this is not so. A mentor and the protégée can work out the amount of time they can spare from the outset.
In recent years, in the management and human resources literature, the term mentor, which is a noun, has become a verb as well and -- with or without "ing" as an appendage -- now refers to the patterned behaviors or process whereby one person acts as mentor to another.
Formal and informal mentoring
There are two types of mentoring relationships: formal and informal. Informal relationships develop on their own between partners. Formal mentoring, on the other hand, refers to assigned relationships, often associated with organizational mentoring programs designed to promote employee development.
In well-designed formal mentoring programs, there are program goals, schedules, training (for mentors and protégée), and evaluation.
Mentoring is also used to groom new employees deemed to have the potential to move up into leadership roles. Here the employee is paired with a senior level leader for a series of career-coaching interactions. A mentor does not have to be a manager or supervisor to facilitate the process. Some organizations encourage their employees to take up mentoring by offering them incentives and awards. Training institutes are also sending interns into companies after appointing mentors to assist them. This has made mentoring a buzzword that has brought attitudinal changes that are far-reaching.
Deepening the understanding
The key to personal and organizational success is the sense of purpose and the ability to be purposeful. Mentoring can be a highly effective means of evoking purposefulness and generating high levels of motivation and corporate intent. Increasingly organizations need to be able to continuously reinvent themselves to stay aligned with and responsive to the needs of their customers and other stakeholders. . Creating the necessary changes can involve a wide range of programs and initiatives such as cultural change, process re-engineering, benchmarking, total quality management, values alignment, and so forth. All these can be successful only if they are accompanied by behavioral change in the stake holders in the senior executives in particular. Executive mentoring is an intervention designed to support such senior executives and other key staff in making the necessary behavioral changes.
Living our purpose consistently is a profound challenge. It requires high levels of self-awareness, a firm commitment, a strong sense of our own self-worth, a willingness to take risks, and the emotional discipline to travel outside our comfort zone. In essence, it is important that we develop the skills of self-leadership. The role of the mentor in this is to help the protégée to continually deepen their understanding of reality, develop their sense of self, learning to listen to what is emerging, and to encourage them to live their purpose.
References:
managementhelp.org
wikipedia.org
hinduonnet.com
mentoringforchange.co.uk