Following on from my recent article on collaborative mentoring I want to start by re-emphasising that mentoring is a two-way relationship. It is not a one-way street with the mentor just handing out their good advice. When you enter into a mentoring relationship you need to be prepared to give back to your mentor and make sure they feel valued and appreciated.

So in starting out on your mentoring relationship the first thing that you need to do is to clearly identify the challenge you are facing. You then need to jointly define your mentoring goals and what measure you are going to put in place to ensure your achieve these and overcome your challenge. I will cover how to do this in more depth in my next article.

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Here are eight steps to follow:

Step 1: Identify one or two specific leadership skills you feel that you could improve through mentoring. Is it your ability to make strategic decisions in a quick and decisive manner? Is it your ability to recognize and develop talent to improve the success of your department and yourself? Is it your ability to motivate or to deal with conflict?

Step 2: Next, assess what style of leadership is best suited to you. Are you a decisive type of leader who makes the decisions and motivates others to follow those decisions? Or is yours a more collaborative leadership style, working through consensus?

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mentor – a trusted counselor or guide

The word mentoring has taken on several different meanings over the years including advisor, promoter, and coach. But, in every definition, there is the assumption of an older, more experienced person guiding a younger, less experienced person.

This type of guidance can be very useful when mentor and mentee work together effectively. Mentoring can help people build awareness, take advantage of opportunities, build and apply skills, and achieve results that become the foundation for a successful career.

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