5 Invaluable Things Mentoring Has Taught Me

The use of mentoring has exploded in corporate life and within a variety of organizations, both big and small. Whether you are being mentored for the first time, or if you have just accepted the role of mentor.  I want to give you 5 things that I have learnt from being a mentor over the past few years:

#1: Be a Critical Friend

By ‘critical’ here I do not mean offering negative criticism, instead you need to be aware that you are offering positive comments and guidance. You are not overtly critical, nor are you just there to be their friend and tell them what they want to hear. It may mean that you sometimes tell them something that is difficult for them to take – see the ‘wake up’ call later on – but you are failing in your duties as a mentor, if all you do is tell them how well they are doing, if it isn't true.

#2: A Sounding Board

When teaching or training, I always tell my students, “there are no stupid questions, only the ones that go unasked.” A mentor needs to be someone who the mentee feels comfortable running their ideas and questions past, no matter how outlandish they may seem. It is not the role of the mentor to validate or reject those ideas, instead you need to offer probing and guiding questions that will help the mentee to clarify them in their mind and then come to their own conclusions as to their validity.

#3: The Voice of Experience

It helps if the mentor has already trodden the path that the mentee is following, not just once but multiple times. However, whilst being the voice of experience, that should not blind you to the fact that the mentee may actually come with a fresh pair of eyes and see something in a new and innovative way. Just because you are looking through the eyes of experience, this should never blind you to the different perspective of your mentee.

#4: The 'Wake Up' Call

Sometimes our motivation fails us. Life takes over and the things that we planned to do get done are submerged by work and family commitments. A mentor does not provide the motivation, this can only come from the mentee themselves, although it is useful for them to know that there is someone out there who is following what they are doing with interest.

However, there comes a point when they may not be progressing or they have come to a full stop. As a mentor you then provide the wake up call – take them back to the reasons why they started the project, or whatever it is they are embarked upon, and ask them whether they are still valid and if they are going to complete on the original basis. Perhaps the original objectives need to be changed, but a good mentor helps the mentee to refocus on what is important and encourages them to get their mojo back.

#5: Guide DO NOT Lead

You are not there to say, ‘this is the path to take’, instead you say, ‘these are some of your alternatives’. Some mentors assume the role of leader, by providing too much of the motivation, where they think it is lacking, or by telling the mentee what it is they need to be doing and how they need to do it. If it all goes wrong, then the mentee will rightly blame you and the relationship will sour. This approach also develops a relationship of dependence, rather than encouraging the spirit of independence that sees real growth on the part of the mentee. For mentors that come to the role with a great deal of experience it can be hard, but it is often better to lead from behind and take a step back by being the sounding board and critical friend along the journey.

These are just five of my own personal reflections on being a mentor, you may have others, but I hope that you derive some benefit from them. Have you been mentored, what did you learn from the process? Have you been a mentor, what would you offer other would-be mentors as good advice?

Will Trevor is the Founder and Training Consultant at Windsor Training. Please click 'Follow' if you would like to hear more from Will in the future. Feel free to also connect via his Linkedin page, or via Twitter and Facebook or email: will.trevor@windsortraining.net

Other recent and popular posts by Will:

4 Ways to Give Effective Criticism at Work

Job Interviews: Don't Take it Personally

10 Reasons Why Psychologists Believe You Make Bad Decisions

Is It Time to Ditch the Elevator Pitch?

The 5 Qualities of Collaborative Leaders

Picture Credits: (1) https://flic.kr/p/9hHHbJ (Contemplation - Art Critic, Pompidou Centre Modern Art Gallery, Paris, France by Steve Greaves; (2)https://flic.kr/p/h2Spbi The Dangling Conversation by Trev (3) https://flic.kr/p/9nPph1Mr. Patel's Father. Gwarko, Nepalby Zak Zavada (4) https://flic.kr/p/7pTNfD wake up by Emmanuel; (5) https://flic.kr/p/9hHHbJ Susanna by Niall Kennedy

Leadership in 20 Quotes

In the end, it is important to remember that we cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are." - Max De Pree

Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision." - Peter Drucker

A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd." -Max Lucado

A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit." - John Maxwell

The challenge of leadership is to be strong but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not a bully; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly." - Jim Rohn

I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize. The first is gentleness; the second is frugality; the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others. Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men." - Lao Tzu

Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things." -Peter Drucker

Leadership is not about titles, positions, or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another." - John Maxwell

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other." - John F. Kennedy

He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader.”
― Aristotle

In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders.” ― Sheryl Sandberg

You have to be burning with "an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right." If you're not passionate enough from the start, you'll never stick it out.” ― Steve Jobs

The key to successful leadership is influence, not authority.” ― Ken Blanchard

People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision." - John Maxwell

A leader is a dealer in hope." - Napoleon Bonaparte

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” – John Quincy Adams

Successful leaders see the opportunities in every difficulty rather than the difficulty in every opportunity.”- Reed Markham

The best leader is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and the self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” -Theodore Roosevelt

Will Trevor is the Founder and Training Consultant at Windsor Training. Please click 'Follow' if you would like to hear more from Will in the future. Feel free to also connect via his Linkedin page, or via Twitter and Facebook or email: will.trevor@windsortraining.net

Other recent and popular posts by Will:

Is a Good Leader a Servant or a Master?

So you can lead, but can you follow?

10 Reasons Why Psychologists Believe You Make Bad Decisions

Is It Time to Ditch the Elevator Pitch?

The 5 Qualities of Collaborative Leaders

Is a Good Leader a Servant or a Master?

Nobody could dispute that Gandhi was a good leader who inspired a loyal following through his own self-sacrifice and in the service of a cause. Servant Leadership, as it is known, has its roots in ancient philosophy, but it is also increasingly seen as relevant to leadership within today's modern organizations.

Whilst those roots can be traced to the writings of a philosopher and poet of ancient China, an increasing number of modern leadership and management thinkers have embraced the ideas of Servant Leadership and both its relevance and popularity are growing as a result.

Prominent amongst those writers are the late Stephen Covey, the author of “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, and Ken Blanchard, the management expert and author of the best-selling book, “The One Minute Manager”. Emphasizing the importance of Servant Leadership, Blanchard is quoted as saying:

I truly believe that Servant Leadership has never been more applicable to the world of leadership than it is today. Not only are people looking for a deeper purpose and meaning when they must meet the challenges of today’s changing world; they are also looking for principles and philosophies that actually work. Servant leadership works. Servant leadership is about getting people to a higher level by leading people at a higher level.

But what is Servant Leadership?

The 5th century Chinese poet and philosopher, Lao-Tzu, wrote about leadership and suggested that, “the highest type of ruler is one of whose existence the people are barely aware.” The modern interpretation of what Servant Leadership is, however, comes from the writings of Robert Greenleaf, who coined the phrase “Servant Leadership” in a 1970 essay entitled, “The Servant as Leader”. He sums up Servant Leadership in the following passage:

The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.

To put it simply, Servant Leadership is a philosophy and practice of leadership that inverts the traditional pyramid of the leader at the apex, who exercises and builds power. Instead the servant-leader strives to share power and help the development and performance of their team.

So how do I use Servant Leadership within the workplace?

Greenleaf outlined 10 principles of Servant Leadership:

1. Listening – The servant-leader is a skilful listener, who listens to both what is being said, and what is not said, and sums up the will of the team.
2. Empathy - Even if the performance is below par, you might reject the behaviour and performance of your team, without rejecting them as people.
3. Healing - The servant-leader is able to bring the team together in the wake of times of conflict or change, whether that is from outside or from within.
4. Awareness - Of themselves, others, and what is going on around them and the team.
5. Persuasion - Seeking to persuade by convincing others of the merits of a course of action, rather than coercing through the exercise of authority.
6. Foresight - Using the intuition of lessons learnt from yesterday to the problems of today and those yet to arise tomorrow.
7. Conceptualization - Balancing the need to be focused on what is happening today, with the ability to provide a sense of mission and vision for tomorrow.
8. Stewardship - Recognising a sense of responsibility for the team, the organization, and also to the wider society.
9. Commitment to the growth of people - A focus on developing people in terms of their personal and professional development and acknowledging the potential for their future growth.
10. Building Community - Bringing together and developing a sense of belonging and common purpose within organizations, both large and small.

But does Servant Leadership actually work in practice?

Edward D. Hess, a professor of business administration at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, says that years of careful research have indicated that many of the leaders in today's most successful organizations don't conform to the stereotype of charismatic and commanding individuals. Instead they are servant-leaders, who lead by example through their daily behaviour. Servant Leadership delivers high performance in organizations as diverse as: Best Buy, UPS, Ritz Carlton, Room & Board, Whole Foods, Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, Levy Restaurants, the San Antonio Spurs and TSYS. Commenting on the power of Servant Leadership, Hess says:

The behavior of leaders, coupled with attitudes and beliefs, either enables or inhibits high performance. Good intentions and words are not enough. The best leaders understand that daily behaviors count. And leadership is hard work because it takes discipline. Servant leaders are vigilant in fighting elitism, arrogance, complacency and hubris daily.

Do you already see yourself as a Servant Leader? How could you employ the principles of Servant Leadership into your organization?

Will Trevor is the Founder and Training Consultant at Windsor Training. Please click 'Follow' if you would like to hear more from Will in the future. Feel free to also connect via his Linkedin page, or via Twitter and Facebook or email: will.trevor@windsortraining.net

Other recent and popular posts by Will:

10 Reasons Why Psychologists Believe You Make Bad Decisions

Is It Time to Ditch the Elevator Pitch?

The 5 Qualities of Collaborative Leaders

The 5 Qualities of Collaborative Leaders

Are you a collaborative leader?

Collaborative leadership has not yet received the recognition that it rightly deserves, but that is, however, now beginning to change with recent academic studies giving it greater prominence in the scholarship about management and leadership. And practising managers are also starting to take more notice of its benefits within the workplace. Effective collaborative leadership can make a big difference to the successful delivery of a project and developing some of the qualities of a collaborative leader will give you a personal and professional edge in today's ever-changing environment.

But what is collaborative leadership?

In their influential book, Collaborative Leadership: How to succeed in an interconnected world, David Archer and Alex Cameron define collaborative leadership as simply the ability to deliver results across the boundaries within and between organizations. Or to put it another way, you may find yourself leading a team that is spread out, not only within other departments and teams, but across a range of other organizations and specialists too and even continents. They go on to say that,

Getting value from difference is at the heart of the collaborative leader's task… they have to learn to share control, and to trust a partner to deliver, even though that partner may operate very differently from themselves.

What has collaborative leadership achieved?

If you think about some of technological innovations of our age, many have been achieved collaboratively, rather than through the lone-wolf inventor working away in their bedroom. Where would Google be without the collaboration between Larry Page and Sergey Brin? Where would Twitter be without the collaboration between its founders, Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Noah Glass? And I recently wrote about Steve Wozniak and his indispensable collaboration with Steve Jobs, without whose partnership we might never have heard of Apple.

What are the 5 qualities of collaborative leaders?

In a ground-breaking research project by the Center for Effective Public Policy and funded by the US Department of Justice, report author Madeleine Carter identified 5 key qualities of a collaborative leader:

#1: A willingness to take risks

The collaborative leader realises that ‘change is the only constant’, as the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, but the organization cannot be a slave to the forces of change, instead it also needs to shape them. James Dyson was prepared to take risks with his revolutionary bagless vacuum, despite overwhelming feedback from focus groups and market research which rejected his invention.

#2: Eager Listeners

It is a truism that we have two ears and one mouth and good leaders should use them in that proportion. Old School managers may feel that theirs is the only voice that should be heard, but the collaborative leader in the modern connected workplace knows that a project will only succeed with the input from a range of specialists.

#3: Passion for the cause

The passion and drive of a leader can help to motivate the team to deliver the project. When you have a large cross-functional team comprising many different specialists, or even spread across many continents, the collaborative leader can be the focal point that brings everyone together and motivates them to achieve a common purpose.

#4: Optimistic about the future

The collaborative leader does not become mired in pessimism. Instead the leader sees the path ahead and believes in the team’s mission and the relevance of what they are doing in their joint enterprise. It is a key element of motivation that people like to feel involved in something that is bigger than themselves and a collaborative leader can be key in driving that vision.

#5: Able to share knowledge, power and credit

A quote variously attributed to US president, Harry S Truman, amongst others, states that, “it’s amazing what you can achieve, if you don’t care who gets the credit.” The collaborative leader instinctively understands this and is not protective of their own knowledge and they are prepared to share it and devolve authority and power when it is good for the overall mission. Credit is shared, rather than reserved for the leader.

Are you a collaborative leader and do you see yourself in any of these qualities listed here? Is collaborative leadership a new and important development in management and leadership, or is it just another buzz word or slogan?

Will Trevor is the Founder and Training Consultant at Windsor Training. Please click 'Follow' if you would like to hear more from Will in the future. Feel free to also connect via his Linkedin page, or via Twitter and Facebook or email: will.trevor@windsortraining.net

Other recent and popular posts by Will:

Steve Wozniak: Apple's Other Steve

Job Interviews: Don't take it personally

Mentoring: 5 Things I Have Learned From Being A Mentor

So you can lead, but can you follow?

4 Ways to Give Effective Criticism at Work

Nobody really likes to be criticized: the word has negative connotations of someone pulling your work apart and telling you how bad it is and making you feel angry and annoyed, just like a drill instructor shouting at a new recruit. The reality is that people are often simultaneously bad at giving criticism and similarly poor at receiving it. Whilst we often like to think that we are giving out good advice and feedback, the recipient may hear our words as negative criticism and respond in a way that we had not intended.

Couching everything as mere feedback often misses the point that there may be serious performance issues that need to be addressed. That doesn't, however, mean that the manager has to adopt an overtly negative or hyper-critical approach to giving meaningful and developmental criticism. Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos are famous for roasting colleagues, you and I have to be more positive in our approach, if we want to develop our team and deliver on our objectives.

So how do we ensure that as a manager we are a good critic to?

#1 – Accentuate the Positives

Start by praising what went well. If you start on a positive then you have the team member on side and they'll also believe that what you are telling them is balanced and considered and they may be more receptive to what you have to say. If you launch in with what went wrong, then you will alienate them from the outset and their defences will be up, even if you then proceed to give them some praise for something that went well.

#2 – Highlight Progress

Even if the performance isn't quite where it needs to be, give credit where progress has been achieved and forward momentum has been made. A key part of motivation is to feel that we are getting good at something, but if all we hear is how bad we are doing, even where some progress – however slight – is being made, then this can be a powerful de-motivator. If things have improved, then say so.

#3 – Be Encouraging

Suggest that the issue can be resolved and that the team member is capable of overcoming it and succeeding, given the right encouragement and support. Try and be nurturing towards your team, because the payback in terms of the boost to performance will be incalculable and you will be building a supportive and loyal group around you.

#4 – Share the Blame

Don’t make the team member out to be a scapegoat. If you are the manager, then some of the blame probably sits on your shoulders and if part of the reason is something that you did, or failed to do, then say so. Otherwise you will just start to build resentment and a belief that you are prepared to sacrifice others and shift the blame. Your team don’t expect you to be infallible, but they do expect you to have broad enough shoulders to admit your own mistakes when they happen.

Will Trevor is the Founder and Training Consultant at Windsor Training. Please click 'Follow' if you would like to hear more from Will in the future. Feel free to also connect via his Linkedin page, or via Twitter and Facebook or email: will.trevor@windsortraining.net

Other recent and popular posts by Will:

Job Interviews: Don't take it personally

Mentoring: 5 Things I Have Learned From Being A Mentor

So you can lead, but can you follow?

Picture Credit: "Marine Corps drill instructor yells at recruit" by Staff Sergeant J.L. Wright Jr. - www.usmc.mil images. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Marine_Corps_drill_instructor_yells_at_recruit.jpg#

Bill Gates or Steve Jobs? Who will we remember in 50 years?

I’d like to get a debate going and I’d like to have your views.

Two of the greatest technological and entrepreneurial leaders of this age are Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, but how will we remember them in terms of their legacy of leadership and entrepreneurship? Who will we remember in years to come for their legacy to future generations?

Gates has the advantage of still having time to shape his legacy, whereas Jobs’s deeds are now cast in stone and open to interpretation. Maybe it’s a little unfair to set this up as a boxing match between two entrepreneurial heavyweights, but my question was inspired by the comments of best-selling Canadian author and speaker, Malcolm Gladwell.

Jobs: The 'Tweaker'

In an article in the New Yorker, Gladwell said that Jobs was more of a ‘tweaker’, rather than a true innovator and visionary. He argues that Jobs didn’t invent the graphical user interface (GUI) and the mouse, instead he took the ideas from the Xerox research center at Palo Alto (PARC). He also didn’t invent the iPod, he waited until early MP3 technology had been tested and developed elsewhere and then launched his own device. Gladwell says of Jobs:

"Every single idea he ever had, came from somebody else. And he would be the first to say this. He would also take credit for things. He was shameless. He was an extraordinarily brilliant businessman and entrepreneur. He was also a self-promoter on a level that we have rarely seen.

Gates: The Philanthropist

Gates, on the other hand, would be remembered for his charitable work and the fact that he has established the Gates Foundation with billions of his own money, claiming that there would be statues of him across the Third World, not for his entrepreneurship or leadership, but because his money is likely to fund a cure for malaria.

In Defence of Jobs

Defending Jobs, the Forbes columnist, Frederick Allen, argues that Gladwell gets the nature of invention and Job’s achievements wrong. According to Allen, if you use Gladwell’s definition, then all of greatest inventions are tweaks: Ford didn’t invent the automobile; the Wright brothers didn’t invent flying; and there were a number of light bulbs before Edison’s.

What Jobs did was to build a better device for the storing and retrieval of music and he also built an ecosystem to support it, with the iTunes platform. As for the mouse and the GUI, Steve Jobs biographer, Walter Isaacson, points out how limited the developments were that PARC had made and that the Apple team brought the whole desktop dream to reality, enabling things to be dragged, dropped, resized and manipulated, like never before.

So what do you think: will we remember Gates for his charitable work and Jobs as an innovator and visionary? What do you think will be their legacy in 50 years’ time?

Will Trevor is the Founder and Training Consultant at Windsor Training. Please click 'Follow' if you would like to hear more from Will in the future. Feel free to also connect via his Linkedin page, or via Twitter and Facebook or email: will.trevor@windsortraining.net

Other recent and popular posts by Will:

‘THE NEXT BIG THING’? The Top 10 Emerging Technologies

Job Interviews: Don't take it personally

Steve Jobs: six insights from his leadership style and personal philosophy

Photo: flikr.com