Organizations
use variety of tools and techniques for development of its people in general
and leadership and management development in particular. coaching and
mentoring are some of the key techniques used by organizations. Thus, it is
important to know what is mentoring and how it can facilitate leadership and
management development skills.
Kram
(1985) as cited in Burgess and Dyer (2009: pg. 465) define mentoring as:
“a relationship between a young adult and an
older, more experienced adult that helps the younger individual learn to navigate
in the adult world and the world of work. A mentor supports guides and counsels
the young adult as he or she accomplishes this important task”.
Murray
and Owen (1991) as cited in Gay (1994: pg. 4) state that:
“facilitated mentoring is a structure and
series of processes designed to create effective mentoring relationships, guide
the desired behaviour change of those involved, and evaluate the results for
the protégés, the mentors and the organisation”.
Other
defines mentoring as “The process in which
an experienced veteran helps to shape or guide a newcomer” (Brown as cited
in Appelbaum et al, 1994: pg. 3). There is a little difference between
mentoring and coaching, the former could be extremely structured or may be more
open (relationship based), whereas later is goal focused and involve practical
type of one-on-one learning (CIPD, 2013). Mentoring has important role in
development, and therefore its significance will be further discussed from
leadership development perspective.
Mentoring,
coaching, 360-degree feedback, job assignments, experimental learning and
commercial case studies are useful techniques for developing both line managers and senior
executives. Mentoring programs play central role in
developing leadership styles, which consequently put organization on the right
path to accomplish its objective. Leadership and management development
theories also propose that mentoring is the key method in developing
individuals. In addition, Abraham Zaleznik suggests that mentors take risk with
people, which help in the development of key leadership skills. Mentoring is a
developmental relationship which enhances individual development. Furthermore,
globally, mentoring technique is enormously popular, in UK, 80 percent of
senior executives have described mentoring as key to their success, whereas 70
percent of top 500 firms in the USA have used mentoring technique. Mentors are
also described as people who facilitate new leaders to learn the tricks, and
consequently mentees portray their mentors as leading role models, which
benefit the mentees in the form of learning new skills. Thus, not only
mentoring techniques help in the development of new leaders but it also helps
in the development of top and middle level managers’ leadership skills.
Appropriate
mentoring system in organizations not only develops quality leadership, but
that also brings new skill for mentees, organizations and mentors as well.
Executive mentoring technique helps junior executives to develop leadership
skills, for instance on the job, senior executives encourage mentees to learn
and practice skills. Some steps are valuable for choosing the right mentor in
order to develop mentee for effective leadership, first step is choosing a
mentor who is not directly or indirectly involved in reporting relationship,
second step involve assigning senior and interested leaders as mentors who would
like to share knowledge one-on-one with mentee. In third step, competent higher
executives with strong communication and listening skills should be selected,
and they must possess right ability to develop others. Furthermore, mentors
should be good narrators who can share his personal experience with mentees.
Fifth step involve choosing generous mentors, who can be available to assist
mentee at any time, and last but not least good mentors must have the ability
to apply mentee’s learning into practice and share wide range of his personal
development experiences.
In
addition, mentoring technique facilitate change in organizational culture by
creating learning environment, which consequently facilitates leadership and
management development. Furthermore, Mentoring benefit both protégés and
mentors, protégés (mentee) learn leadership skills with the help of mentor’s
support or via observing mentors’ leadership traits, likewise, mentors also
develop their management traits in leading and managing protégés. Another key
method for developing personal or professional capabilities by mentors is to
assign the recipient or protégé a difficult and complicated assignment. Group
mentoring is one of the key techniques in making and developing new leadership
skills, survey results indicate that 75 percent of the respondents agreed that
group mentoring helped them in the learning leadership skills. Therefore,
individuals can develop leadership skills with the help of mentor support, and
in addition group mentoring also prove to be useful in the development of
making new leadership.
Furthermore,
leadership also develops when they interact with environmental events and
features. Mentors assign difficult job roles for leaders to learn from a new
perspective. Therefore, mentors develop leaders by giving challenging roles as
that will encourage individuals to learn from a different perspective.
Moreover,
effective mentoring programs should be designed, for instance Nynex designed
mentoring program purposely for the development of women leadership, which
involved “mentoring circles”, and proved to be more effective compared to one
to one relationship. Mentoring circles included six to ten mentee and two to
four senior mentors, who used to meet up regularly for 12 to 18 months. Mentoring
alone cannot develop mentee and mentor without proper evaluation, and mentoring
must be designed for achieving specific targets. Therefore, mentoring technique
will turn out to be more effective in developing leaders, if clear
developmental goals and objectives are set.
Moreover,
mentor’s networking is vital to managerial success, and managers must build
mentoring relationships with talented workers in various business units, as
mentor’s networking is more effective than usual one-on-one mentoring. Leading
companies develop potential employees with the help of internal mentoring programs,
where they are paired with senior leaders for learning. Thus, internal
networking in organization facilitates leadership development, and talented
individuals can be further flourished by pairing them with veteran leaders.
Thus, mentoring technique assists in the development of new leaders as well
as in the development of top and middle level manager’s leadership skills. Individuals
can develop leadership skills with the help of mentor support, and in addition group
mentoring also prove to be useful in the development of new leaders. Mentors
develop and strengthen leadership skills by giving challenging roles as that encourage
individuals to learn from a different perspective. Mentoring techniques turn
out to be more effective in developing leaders, if clear developmental goals
and objectives are set. Internal networking in organization facilitates
leadership development, and talented individuals can be further flourished by
pairing them with veteran leaders.
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