Are You Being a Good Mentor?

Are you being a good mentor?

This week in ‘Help Me Communicate’, I’m going to share how mentoring is happening naturally at work and how to enhance it. You can apply this to your personal life too. Have you heard of Socratic mentoring?

This is part of the 'Help Me Communicate' Video Series.

You can learn effective communication skills. Every week we will post some tools and tips to help you become a great communicator.

Learn how to manage conflict and how to approach those difficult conversations. Learn effective word choice, questioning techniques and listening skills. Learn to be a better mentor. go to:

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for the weekly broadcast at 10 AM mountain time on Wednesdays.

Mentoring is a natural form of communicating. At work, and as a leader, how we mentor greatly determines our success. 

Is mentoring happening in your work environment?

Yes it is. Mentoring happens naturally from childhood on. Think of a older sibling or cousin you admired. Think of a co-worker, boss or owner you admired? There was an aspect of those people that you liked and wanted to be like. Me too. 

Is the mentoring at your workplace effective? What’s being mentored?

Whats the culture?

Is productivity being mentored?

Is teamwork being mentored?

Is effective communication being mentored?

Are your people being trained as well as they could be?

When you give your people a place to grow and support them. Your team will shine. The team will outperform the competition. Your will have a happy team that likes to come to work. You will have some fun.

When the mentoring is guided, its makes your work environment better. People like to learn. It’s a basic need. People want to do well. We all have a basic need to be appreciated.

It’s up to leaders to make sure they give their people tools to succeed and adjust as needed.

Do you want your people and team to function like a well oiled and maintained machine? Or do you want them to sputter and struggle along? Would you make more money or be more efficient?

Take advantage of mentoring and tune it a little. Here’s some tips.

Socratic mentoring is about asking questions. Socrates story.

The most important question you can ask as a leader is:

How can I support you to succeed in your job? And then do it or replace the person with someone you can support in an appropriate way or a way that first for you as  a leader. Surround yourself with a team that fits for you as a leader. Surround yourself with a team that can work together.

You could formalize mentoring and tell the mentee what your intention is.

Here’s the steps to formalize it.

Use the MENTOR formula.

MENTOR

Mention it. Ask if they want to be mentored?

Evaluate the employee. Ask questions to evaluate where they are now.

New goals identification process. Ask questions about where they want to be and what they want to learn. What skills do they need to improve. What emotions do they need to invoke and build on? What industry knowledge do they have to acquire? Do they have to improve communication skills? Do they have to improve other leadership skills? Do they have to improve on attention to detail and reducing mistakes? Identify their goals. Ask and identify how you can support them best as a mentor.

Tune in to how the mentee learns. Listen to what they’ve said and make an appropriate plan to guide them.

Organize yourself and a system to mentor them. Make a schedule for teaching and growth. Set time frames for meetings. Write down what the objectives of the mentoring is.

Record the sessions. In each session, record the growth since last session and record the commitment to whats going to happen between now and the next session.

When you give your people a place to grow and support them. Your team will shine. The team will outperform the competition. Your will have a happy team that likes to come to work. You will have some fun.