LEADERSHIP - 6 SKILLS EVERY LEADER MUST APPLY WHEN MENTORING OTHERS

“The mediocre leader tells. The good leader explains. The superior leader demonstrates. The great leader inspires.” - William Arthur Ward
 
When you are leading others it is important to keep your mentoree on track. Here are 6 important things you should know and practice:

1. Identify mentoring goals upfront

Leading is an exploration of potential and how to improve performance. Like all great explorers your mentoree will need to have some goals to keep them on track. Begin the mentoring by helping your mentoree define what they would like to achieve and set a few specific goals around this. This will help both you and your mentoree stay more focused and not wander too far off track.

2. Use questions to focus discussions

Rather than tell your mentoree how they should think and behave use questions to guide the discussion and their thinking. Questions are very powerful and you will make your mentoree think by using probing open questions. Don’t rely on closed questions such as those with a “yes” or “no” answer. Open questions are far more challenging.

3. Listen don’t lecture

You may be the fount of all wisdom but your role as a mentor is not to lecture your mentoree. Listen carefully to them and engage in conversation and discussion. The mentoree should be the focus of the mentoring session. By all means give advice but always try to draw ideas out of the mentoree themselves. The mentoree needs to have ownership of the ideas discussed.

4. Don’t do the work for the mentoree

As soon as the has discussed an issue with a leader, many leaders explain exactly what should be done and how it should be done in great detail. The explanations may be clear and accurate but the problem is that the leader does all the thinking. The aim of leading is to enable the mentoree to make decisions and work out the best path. Of course sometimes a leader will need to take off their mentoring hat and explain what to do. The problem arises when the leader does all the work of thinking things through. As a leader you are a guide but the mentoree is the explorer!

5. Keep raising the bar

As a successful leader you will want to challenge your mentoree to keep raising the bar. Guide them to improve what they are doing and encourage innovation and learning new and better ways of doing things.

6. Review progress and celebrate achievements

Finally take a little time in each mentoring session to review progress. Where there are improvements celebrate these successes with your mentoree and give positive feedback……..and don’t forget to celebrate your own success as a leader!!!


All the best with your leadership!