Mentoring

Lonely At The Top?

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Doidam 10/Shutterstock

It does not have to be!

One of the unspoken challenges that comes with the ascension into a senior leadership role is that there is no one to talk to.  When a leader takes on the role of the Chief Executive Officer, they are perceived as having the competencies and the abilities to enact all organizational decisions and strategies on their own.  As the leader of others, the CEO does not need to have a leader for themselves.  It is as if once the leader has assumed the role, they are fully formed and no longer need further development from others.

This view of a leadership practice flies in the face of the principles of life-long learning and the on-going development of a learning organization.  Leaders are human.  Humans are innately drawn to the need for constant development and continuous learning.  While the organizational leader may no longer need to have the same kind of formal professional development plans that they learned from as they moved into more senior leadership roles, once they are in the top position, the leader does need to continue learning and growing, just like everyone else.

Mentorship provides one of the most effective forms of leadership training and learning to those that move into the organizational leadership role.  The role of the leadership mentor is explored in a recent article in the Financial Post.

Click here to read the article.

The mentorship relationship can have a powerful effect, not only on the CEO, but on the organization as a whole.  When the leader is healthy, the organization is also healthy, as noted in the article.  A leader who has a mentor is able to shape and share ideas to problem solve in a safe environment that respects the leadership function and understands the challenges that come with the mantle of the organizational leader.  The mentor may be one of the few people who can hold the mirror up to the leader for healthy self-critique and continuation of personal and professional development.

We all need someone to talk to who understands and can support us, especially when we must face difficult or challenging decisions.  As with any type of relationship, the key to successful mentoring is to ensure that both the mentor and mentee understand their roles and respect each other’s boundaries.

The leader who keeps learning is a positive role model for the rest of us.

Discussion Questions:

  1. As a Training and Development specialist, how would you develop a mentorship program for the CEO of your organization?
  2. Why would a CEO resist having a formal mentor as part of their personal leadership development plan?
  3. Identify three key characteristics of someone who has been a mentor for you. What made the mentoring relationship work for you?

Mentoring for Mutual Gains

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Two heads graphic
Source: igor kisselev/Shutterstock

What does it take to be a mentor in this generation-defined age of boomers, gen-xes, gen-ys, and millennials?  Typically, we hear of the gaps that exist from one generation’s understanding of the next.  These gaps are often created by negative perceptions of each other, resulting in a premise that the younger generation must adapt and learn from their elders. From this, we end up with traditional mentoring models that have a one-sided mentor-mentee flow. There is heavy emphasis on the mentee being on the receiving end of that flow as sage wisdom pours down from the more experienced and mature mentor.

The traditional mentoring model has definite benefits.  However, it does not have to be a one-way learning or training relationship.  A recent article from Forbes.com offers an expansion of the mentor-mentee relationship that includes mutual benefits to both parties.

Click Here to Read the Article.

This article identifies the modern mentor as one who is willing to step up and participate in the mentor-mentee relationship as an exchange.  Through active participation the modern mentor should be able to change that one-way flow to a two-way transfer of ideas, new learnings, and growth that provide mutual benefits to both parties in the mentoring relationship.   When we change the direction of the flow to a two-way exchange there is clear evidence that both parties will benefit, their respective generation will benefit, and the organization will benefit as a whole.

Discussion Questions:

  1. What learning, skills, and experience would you bring to a mentor-mentee relationship if you were the mentor?
  2. What benefits would you bring to a mentor-mentee relationship if you were the mentee?
  3. What perceptions do you have of the baby boomer generation?
  4. How do you think you are perceived as a member of a particular generation based group? Do you agree with this perception?