I can’t remember who it was, but someone said we should find our perfect successful role model and copy exactly what they do, and we too will succeed; or words to that effect. So, it also makes perfect sense that exploiting on mentoring moments will help clear a path to success. Mentoring and coaching have become vital ways to lead in today’s world of high-performing organizations.
Good leaders are the only way to achieve success in an organization. Leadership in a modern world takes place in the face of fast, uncertain and complex change. Good leaders aspire to motivate employees, to further inspire the organizations’ shared vision. It’s about relationships, achieving goals, empowering others to act, fostering trust and providing role models.
There are no easy answers, but, with a holistic approach. Effective leaders may find that their leading does what it is meant to do, and this is to…well…lead!
Short-term coaching and long-term mentoring is the modern approach. This means more than merely sending employees on performance enhancing courses. Learning does not just simply take place and then automatically happen within the working environment. The long-term mentoring approach improves ROI as well as continuous employee performance.
An organizational mentoring program that is accountability-based, structured and action-oriented improves loyalty and retention rates, which speak volumes for professional development. These efforts are worthwhile to achieve a significant edge in Global business which is becoming increasingly competetive. This is why we should all make the most of our mentoring moments as they will lead to our own individual successes too. It creates a unique opportunity for employees to grow personally as well as professionally.
But what is mentoring?
The etymology of the word derives from Greek mythology – where King Odysseus went off to fight the Trojan War for ten years, but had no way of knowing how long he would be away. He left his son Telemachus in the care of Mentor, and Telemachus grew up to be Mentor’s protégé, as well as a very good boy.
Basically to mentor is to have the wisdom to offer one-on-one leadership. Always a less experienced person with a more highly qualified role model. Protégés tend to accelerate their own growth and shorten their learning curve naturally.
A mentor is basically a servant leader who shares wisdom and experience while demonstrating maturity. This modeling role provides a win-win situation and if you think that being a leader does not mean being a servant, think about the President of the USA? He is supposed to work for the good of the people; the people do not work for the good of the President. Well…they do…but in a different way, but then everyone has to serve in some way.
Just like the words of Bob Dylan ~
“You may be an ambassador to England or France
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls.”“But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody,
It may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.”
Like we said at the beginning, and Peter Drucker said it the best ~ “There is no success without a successor.”
Legitimate leadership legacies are left to protégés who tap into the enduring truths and wisdom of the successful before them. A protégé is a potential leader to whom the baton is passed in the race of life.
