There is a fine line between leadership and being a mentor. Though some make these titles mutually exclusive, A believe mentoring to be a tool/ability of an effective leader. To be a great leader there is no way to circumvent the continued development of everyone in the organization. To aid in the quality of development and the willingness of those involved to grow, there are some practices that I will incorporate into my life. Within John Maxwell’s book Mentoring 101, he reveals many layers and subtopics on this overarching topic. We are going to focus on the specific concepts of increasing their self-esteem, seeing who they can be, making people development a top priority, checking in systematically, and showing transparency. Focusing on …show more content…
Doing this I will discover the great potential within each person I lead. Discovering this potential allows us to create a plan to further develop their potential. After knowing a target trajectory which takes their strengths into account, we have the ability to increase their motivation to accomplish these goals. When someone’s strengths and personal goals are incorporated into their development as well as assigned tasks, there is an exponential increase in their effectiveness. On the contrary, people who are given tasks that do not align with their strengths tend to not follow the plan while resisting …show more content…
With this I strive to learn from them while working to correct my faults. Though this reading it was brought to my attention that a leader who is willing to take responsibility for his actions while being honest as well as transparent with his people is someone to be admired, respected, trusted, and can learn from. I am going to strive to be transparent in my dealings to foster trust and understanding. Taking responsibility for my actions while controlling how I handle the situations I am placed into. This should result in clear understanding or my motives and trajectory for those whom I
A mentor is someone who shares one’s wisdom, knowledge or experience with one’s junior person so that the person could learn and grow. Mentors have many different style of training or passing on their knowledge to other people. The movie “Something the Lord Made” directed by Joseph Sargent shows a kind of mentoring style in between the two main characters Dr. Blalock and Vivan Thomas who invent a way to treat “blue babies” back in the 40s. Vivan Thomas is a brilliant black men who wishes to go to college, and to become a doctor; however, due to the Depression, he loses all his saving. Instead of going to college, Thomas finds an opportunity to work in the hospital. Dr. Blalock, Thomas’s employer, discovers Thomas’s incredible knowledge in medical, and promotes Thomas as his assistant instead of a janitor. Dr. Blalock is a mentor to Thomas. Dr. Blalock trained Thomas with only a high school certification becomes a medical scientific lab technician. Although Dr. Blalock’s mentoring style of Vivan Thomas is similar from my high school speech team coach Mrs. Kuznicki mentoring style of me, they both speak out their criticism of other without consider other’s feeling, and also acknowledge mentees for what they have done, but Mrs. Kuznicki treats me with more patient, less selfishness and encouragement than Dr. Blalock treats Thomas.
In order to become better leaders, individuals need to identify their strengths and weaknesses. Though individuals can identify strengths and weaknesses through formal processes, they can also use informal means such as self-reflection. The fact that individuals have a tendency to gravitate toward the things they do well, things such as ease of learning, tendency to participate in certain activities, and satisfaction gained from performing specific tasks can provide clear pointers to underlying talents (Key-Roberts, 2014).
There is little scientific knowledge when it comes to mentoring effects on future outcomes; in addition posing confusion as to how these programs continue to emerge. A major component in regards to program effectiveness is in measurement or evaluation of its structure (Deutsch, N., & Spencer, R., 2009). This is done by conducting surveys, focus groups, and interviews (Deutsch, N., & Spencer, R. (2009); Karcher, M., & Nakkula, M. (2010); Diehl, D. C., Howse, R. B., & Trivette, C. M. (2011); Osgood, 2012; Williams, 2011). Studies gives the researcher insight into knowledge that otherwise wouldn’t be known, in order to understand mentoring reactions and relationship styles better (Karcher, M., & Nakkula, M. (2010); Christens, B. D., & Peterson, N. A. (2012); Diehl et al., 2011; Leyton‐Armakan, J., Lawrence, E., Deutsch, N., Lee Williams, J., & Henneberger, A. (2012); Meyer, K. C., & Bouchey, H. A. (2010).
In addition, for some mentors, mentoring was a burden or workload issue that often went unnoticed by others. Mentees, too, were concerned by a lack of mentor interest and training and a host of problematic mentor attributes and behaviors (e.g. critical or defensive behaviors). Professional or personal incompatibility or incompatibility based on other factors such as race or gender was also seen by both mentors and mentees as impediments to the success of the relationship. Organizations, too, were confronted with difficulties arising from mentoring programs. Lack of commitment from the organization, lack of partnership and funding problems were reported in some studies, while in others, cultural or gender biases meant that some mentees’ experiences were not
He says that mentoring is something that leaders should do throughout their career since it is not only beneficial to themselves, but it is also beneficial to the person they are mentoring. It is important to identify and groom key players and use aggressive mentoring to not only lift up your employee, but it also improves the skills of the mentor. In today’s society, he has found that it is important to spend at least one day a month mentoring your key players including people who are showing great potential. Mentoring should be done at all levels of leadership, including junior managers. Mentoring is important at all levels of management in order to develop future leaders (Flaum,
Classroom-type leadership consists of activities such as mentoring, coaching, and action learning. This classroom training helps us to be better leaders and gets us prepared for what’s ahead of us. Our development relationships have 2 forms its coaching and mentoring. Back then coaching involved lots of practice, setting goals from one-to-one and help the behaviors to some of our leaders. Mentoring is a relation to an older leader who is agreeing and supporting the development of a youn...
I then asked him if the youth center has ever considered asking for donations to go towards their funding, and if so what came as a result? He responded by stating that the youth center has indeed received donations in the past from various individuals, none of which though are large enough to have a lasting impact on the organization. Although “they did help ease some of the problems at the time being.”
In conclusion, everyone’s have different style of guiding people that can affect the ones receiving the guidance, which can change their life in different ways such as giving them hope to do something better and by helping them to learn to solve their own problems. Therefore, mentoring styles will help the person to choose a right path and encourage them to follow a right path. Mentoring styles affect others to understand yourselves in a better way than before.
Pegg, M. (1999) The Art of Mentoring: How You Can Be a Superb Mentor. Chalford: Management Books.
Leaders have those indispensable qualities of contagious self-confidence, unwarranted optimism, and incurable idealism that allow them to attract and mobilize others to undertake tasks these people never dreamed they could undertake. (To Lead or Not to Lead, Unit One 36)
Describe the qualities of an effective mentor, and provide an example from your own life. *
When I think of mentorship, I think of someone who guides and supports others to achieve their goals. In my opinion, a mentor inspires people around them to work harder and encourages them to succeed. A mentor also provides honest feedback to their mentees and helps them to overcome their limits. To me, a mentor is someone who is passionate about their beliefs and drives people to explore and express themselves.
I am a very passionate individual when it comes to my subordinates. The reflection of my actions as a leader, learner, and human being play a major role in the mentoring process. The thoughts of how my subordinates would describe myself as a leader mean a great deal. Hard- charging, loyal, patient; those are a few words I feel my subordinates would use to describe me as a leader. They would most definitely speak of how calm I am during high stressed situations. I’m the type of supervisor that loves to lead from the front. When there is work to be done, I am right there getting dirty, sweating, and getting drenched in the rain with them. That’s how I earned the respect from all of them. I’ve had the humbling experience of airmen actually fighting (not literally) to be on my shift and for me to even become their rater.
My ethical and moral views, beliefs, attitudes and values have been fashioned by an up bringing that centred on Christian beliefs. Even though religion was not forced upon me as a child, my mother raised us all with a strong sense of right and wrong. Along with the influence of my family, the Navy has had a big influence on the person I am. The Navy has a strong ethos of what is expected of the personnel that serve; this is made up of the following: Leadership, High Professional Standards, and Courage in Adversity, Determination, Loyalty, Mutual Respect, Discipline, A Sense of Humour, Teamwork, and A Can Do Attitude. Most recently of all though, the biggest thing that has influenced me as a person and a parent has been my experiences of working with young people. This includes acting as a Youth Advisor for Portsmouth City Council, a Mentor for Barnardos and a Youth Advisor for East Sussex County Council. I am currently working in two secondary schools as part of my resettlement from the Navy. This has given me the experience of working with young people living in virtual poverty, in constant trouble with the Police and education services and some young people with varying levels of disabilities. This work has given me a good ability to stay impartial, to be non judgemental and has given me a capacity to treat people a lot more emphatically than I was ever able to. This is because I have been exposed to a greater range of problems and personalities than I have been used to in the Navy. These are qualities that I will hopefully be able to transfer into my coaching practice.
Over the past week, I have been given more responsibility assistant wise, I feel as if my teachers throughout this month have begun to trust me more. Three tasks I have accomplished was doing laundry for the first time at the center, one of my co-teachers tasked me with putting the sheets and blankets in the washer/dryer. Although it seems like a minimal task it felt good to learn how they do it. Another task is now doing afternoon circle in the Stingrays classroom. 9/10 times I spend my afternoons in the Stingrays room and the teacher has given me the responsibility of doing afternoon circle with the kids.