Managers as Mentors by Chip R. Bell

      Mentor… the word conjures up two images – a seasoned corporate sage conversing with fortunate but “wet behind the ears” recruit, and a tool for dealing with diversity.  However, mentoring today is not a value added component only for the new and different.  Mentoring is a critical ingredient of every manager’s recipe for survival in a fast changing world of enterprise.  It is the most crucial managerial competence needed to corner the only market that matters: talent.

     Winning organizations are those with learning and experimentation woven into the fabric of their culture.  Managers must become mentors of their associates.  But, how do you combine an “insight goal” with an “in-charge role?”  If learning is about risk taking, how can a manager (the decider of pay increases) encourage the trial and error employees’ need for learning to occur?

Step 1: Humility – The Force of Surrendering To The Process

     Humility entails relinquishing efforts to control the outcome.  It suggests putting great effort into being authentic, real and mask free.  It implies a manager devoted to learning, not dedicated to convincing.  Humility is one of the most difficult and most courageous interpersonal acts a leader (mentor) can take with a subordinate (protégé).  It is also the most powerful!

Step 2: Inclusion – The Power of Acceptance

     Inclusion begins with openness and positive regard.  Leaders who rely on the artifacts of power make grave errors in crafting early rapport important to relationship-building and leveling the learning field.  It is about intently listening to ascertain feelings behind words and making responses which acknowledge those feelings.

Step 3: Generosity – The Joy of Gifting

     Generosity means bestowing value upon another without expectation of reciprocity.  Mentors give advice and feedback conveyed with passion for learning and a concern for the learner.  While such gifts exemplify the core of the mentoring role, they also represent the greatest challenge: power-free facilitation of learning.  Resistance and resentment raise their heads when the conveyor of such “gifts” carries the title “boss!”

Step 4: Freedom – The Magic of Extending

     Freedom entails pushing the relationship beyond the boundaries normally expected.  Great mentors are those willing to give up the relationship in the interest of growth.  They know learning occurs in many ways.  Protégé learning is enhanced and elevated by varied and diverse routs.

     Mentoring is an honor.  With the exception of love, there is no greater gift one can give than the gift of growth.  It is a privilege to be fortunate enough to help another learn, to have wisdom useful to another, and to be fortuitous enough to have someone who can benefit from that wisdom.