You're a culture change professional. How can mentorship help you develop your leadership skills?

Next-level leadership takes effect when mentoring includes receiving authentic wisdom from someone we trust. Choosing our mentors wisely means considering the behaviour they exhibit in their leadership. If it is someone you wish to emulate, they will inspire you to become a better leader, paying the?wisdom forward. forward.

Mentoring is about expanding thinking beyond the conventional. Picture a mentor guiding a mentee through a project not just to achieve goals, but to challenge assumptions, explore alternative perspectives, and embrace innovative approaches. It's about fostering a mindset where curiosity thrives, and where failure is seen as an opportunity to learn and grow. By encouraging mentees to think critically, creatively, and collaboratively, mentors cultivate a culture of resilience, adaptability, and forward-thinking within organizations. Let's elevate mentoring to empower minds and drives impactdul change.

We all have knowledge to share, and lessons to be learned. Mentorship can help with both. By sharing our expertise, we discover what parts of it are valuable to others. By being mentored, we benefit from the experience of others. Whichever seat we’re in, we get to practice open-mindedness, the ability to hold multiple thoughts as true, and the opportunity to define our own perspectives on key issues. Mentoring improves thinking, creativity and awareness, and those are critical life skills.

Mentoring is one of the highest levels of education and leadership at the same time. The trick is that the results are not linked to your performance entirely. It takes two to tango. Make sure You choose your mentee right.

I agree that mentorship is a mutually beneficial learning process that is built on mutual respect, openness and trust. It’s a relationship between a more experienced and less experienced employees. The more experienced provides guidance, support and knowledge to the less experienced employee. Mentors help their mentees to achieve their goals while holding them accountable. Mentors have experience and knowledge therefore provide problem solving techniques and strategies to their mentees to help them solve workplace challenges. For effective mentoring, mentee should follow through with the guidance and advice provided by the mentor. Mentees should follow up with mentors to ensure regular communication and engagement.

One thing I have found helpful is reframing the mentor / mentee relationship opportunities and potential outcomes. Team with someone not like you. Yes really! Being attracted to difference is not always a first choice. Be prepared to be surprised! Mentors are important role models in our lives. Choosing to spend valuable time with someone you know well or who is like you may turn out to be a 'mirroring exercise'. Is that what you really want? It's certainly not for me! I am attracted to being provoked and challenged. I love to be the recipient of those BIG questions that move you to go to that place not recently visited..that introduces new thoughts, possibilities and more than that..it nudges you hard enough to commit and take the plunge.

An aligned mentor mentee relationship is with a Mentor that has the right track record and is ready in their leadership to take on giving constructive feedback, guide and empower a mentee towards the mentee’s goals. He/she has to be able to make the time to help the mentee identify their goals and strategies to succeed. A mentee has to be ready to receive feedback, be open minded and take on new ways of doing things. Most importantly, the mentee needs to trust the mentor and the process.

In choosing a mentor, there are some qualities you should look out for. Find out if the potential mentor is available, empathic, experienced, possess listening skills, willingness to invest in others, can give honest feedback and take feedback. I had a very bad experience in choosing a mentor few years ago. After completion of a course, we were asked to select mentors from the list provided. I made my selection based on industry experience. We were to meet for introductions then schedule our mentoring sessions. I made several calls, sent emails and chats to schedule an introductory meeting without any response. After a month, I got a call from the mentor, requesting that I schedule a meeting. I set up the meeting but she didn’t show up.

These qualities are powerful: Being able to ask your mentor to share examples of culture, change situations that they have seen change Advising your mentor of where you are stuck with a culture change project Reflecting on the workplace culture that you are involved in, - what is it like? What works? What doesn’t? - as part of your preparation for a mentoring session These three qualities will help many mentors who are culture change professionals to make the most of a mentoring conversation. I’m Andry McFarlane an accredited, qualified experience, coach, and a mentor coach at executive level. So all of my responses come from my lived experience.

A mentor is a key role in any organization and can help you a lot to develop in the company. The mentor should be somepone with excellent active listening skills, a person that knows well the organization and know how to connect people inside the company. It is important that this person is able to be one step behind and help the mentee.

Contracting and mentoring happens throughout the relationship rather than just at the beginning. Having said that contracting is an essential part of establishing the mentoring relationship at the beginning of the journey. In your contracting you may include: How often you will meet and for how long? What the scope of your topics is? E.g. a culture change journey Guidelines for confidentiality Boundaries of your role The responsibilities of the mentor and the mentee I am Andry McFarlane and I have taught coaching and mentoring skills to staff and managers for 25 years. I believe mentoring and coaching skills make a huge contribution to changing cultures in the workplace. My examples and blogs come from space of lived experience.

Mentorship offers a myriad of benefits for both mentors and mentees, fostering growth, innovation, and collaboration. As a mentor, you can share your wisdom and expertise, guiding others to reach their full potential. Meanwhile, as a mentee, you gain valuable insights and support to navigate challenges and seize opportunities.

Being a mentor involves a lot of time so in my opinion a mentor should not be appointed by the oprganization but choosen from a pool of people that has voluntarily accepted to be mentors. This will make this process a success.

Mentorship is a powerful thing for development of both Mentors and Mentees. As a mentor you ednd up learning so much when you interact with Mentees of diverse experience, age, functions etc. If you are also a culture change professional, Mentorship can help you anticipate the shifts happening ate various levels.

I think the process of choosing a mentor for one employee should be carefully determined because mentor-mentee should connect, share values, ideas about what is needed to be succesful in an organization and cultural differences should also be taken into consideration.

Mentoring is a powerful way to contribute towards changing a culture in an organisation. On one-to-one level, mentoring others offers you the opportunity to gradually. - explicitly and implicitly - influence the next generation of leaders. At the wider project or whole organisational level mentoring others may contribute towards developing a culture of sharing and collaboration with mentors supporting future leaders, global majority, leaders, or female leaders in an organisation. I’m Andry McFarlane, I have taught coaching and mentoring skills over a 25 year period.So my ideas come from my lived experience rather than theory.

Remember to be aware of cultural differences especially when mentoring across different regions, ethic groups and other factors like religion and political ideologies. These can make it quite challenging for both parties so setting rules early is important and getting to understand each others perspectives and beliefs. You could do a cultural assessment review and use this to discuss the similarities and difference for example.

Es importante destacar que un mentor es una figura temporal con un objetivo específico a lograr. La mentoría se considerará exitosa cuando el mentee se independiza del mentor y puede tomar las decisiones por sí mismo. En ese momento, el rol del mentor se convierte en un colega.