Be a Mentor: Create Accountability and Drive Performance
Effective mentoring is an excellent way for leaders to create accountability and drive performance through investing in people. A mentor’s job is to foster one-to-one relationships that challenge people to rise to higher levels of competence and responsibility
For many businesses, though, the biggest hurdle is making mentoring a priority.
The notion that mentoring wastes time is false. It is a productivity accelerator. Effective mentoring grows responsible employees and frees up the mentor to perform higher-order duties.
“I don’t have time to mentor” is usually a cover for “I don’t know how.” The leader who allows this mentality to prevail is choosing comfort over progress. The road to a stagnant workplace is paved with the phrase “It’s easier if I just do it myself.”
Great mentors…
- Ask challenging questions that help people expand their scope of responsibilities. One of the most important elements to a strong mentoring relationship is not giving people answers. Strong mentors are free of the illusion that they must have all the answers. Mentoring questions teach people how to think rather than telling them what to think.
- Build strong relationships with their mentee. Great mentors have strong 1 on 1 connections with those they are helping to develop. They let people inside their heads, sharing their visions and passions but also their strategic concerns and dilemmas. Those around them feel “in touch” with them. Effective mentors are on a mission to know more about their people.
- Challenge conventional thinking. Great mentors keep people on their toes. They develop penetrating insights about the professional blind spots of those they want to develop, and then challenge people to face them. Along with technical and business skills, they pay attention to people skills.
Tips for Effective Mentoring
Here are three things that you can do to improve your mentoring skills:
- Count Your Questions. In your next 1 on 1 with a direct report, try keeping a “question vs. answer tally” on a pad during the conversation. Two out of every three sentences a true mentor utters are questions. Many who try this are surprised by how few questions they ask.
- Enhance Straight Talk with Humility. The value of sharing challenging insights is enhanced by humility. One great mentor was known to say, “I’m not the sharpest guy when it comes to client relations, but here is what I see when I watch you operate.” He would then add, “Is there anything in what I’m saying that could help you, or do you think I’m off track?” If a mentor has shared his or her own flaws, and efforts to mature as a professional, penetrating feedback is less likely to be taken personally.
- Get a Mentor! Do you have a challenging mentor? Do you meet regularly with your mentor to discuss growth, not projects? What would it take to make that happen? The best way to learn to be a better mentor is to have one yourself. If you have a boss, ask him or her for more-challenging mentoring. If your boss can’t deliver it, find someone who can. If you are a business leader, consider hiring a professional who can “mentor the mentors,” holding them accountable for starting a cascade of better mentoring throughout your workplace.
Poll: Being an Effective Mentor
According to US News these are the seven most effective ways for a mentor to influence his or her mentees. Which one do you think is the most effective?
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