If You've Passed Down These 6 Skills To Your Employees, Psychology Says You're An Incredible Boss
Mentoring your employees is great for everyone's future, and makes you an A+ boss.
Laura Mogollon | Canva Employee and leadership development programs are necessary in every sector, from global multinationals to family-owned businesses, consulting companies, and public sector organizations.
The purpose of passing critical skills on to employees is not only to be an incredible boss but also to transfer the lessons of richer experience learned by experienced professionals in a workforce to improve the capability of all the team's individuals and workgroups.
If you've passed down these skills to your employees, you're a great boss:
1. Guidance
To institutionalize mentoring, it must be looked at as a critical strategy to improve employee engagement, accelerate career development, groom leaders, and perpetuate a learning culture. It may not apply in every case.
The reasons for implementing a mentoring program must be linked to your company’s business goals. And the reasons for dedicating effort and resources to a formal mentoring process must be justified.
Career coach Jeff Saperstein suggested, "Seek people who can play these important roles in your life. A boss who cultivates and helps you to grow into more responsibility. A mentor who has been successful and is open to helping you by sharing their experience and providing guidance on questions you raise. A sponsor with power in the organization or in the field who is willing to commit relationship capital and their reputation to support and recommend you."
"Your supervisor should be asking, 'How is your job satisfying you and how could it be better?' They should introduce you to new concepts or practices to improve your understanding and performance," concluded Saperstein.
2. Vision
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All the stakeholders, including the executive teams, need to be part of planning the vision and defining strategy and objectives for the formal mentoring process.
Usually, a committee is set up to ensure the execution happens smoothly. The purpose and goals of this exercise should be clear to all.
The expected outcome of the program should be made clear to the mentors and mentees, too, as suggested by an article in Global Business and Organizational Excellence. The criteria for selecting mentors and mentees need to be chalked out.
3. Participation
There has to be a mechanism in place to select the right mentors and mentees and further the matching of each. An article in the Journal of Vocational Behavior supported that mentors should be people truly interested in the development of others. Mentees should be eager to learn and grateful for the opportunity.
Good mentee candidates are those who have demonstrated clear evidence of future leadership. For the program to be effective, mentors and mentees must participate voluntarily and willingly.
4. Preparation
A good mentoring program builds in formal orientation for mentors to equip them with the skill set required to establish and sustain a successful learning partnership with a mentee.
This training must clarify the difference between mentoring and managing. There's a lot of learning and unlearning a mentor will have to do to perform this role effectively and provide the tools and resources the participants will need on the journey, according to recent research in the Sustainability Journal.
Mentees will have to learn how to take charge of their learning and evaluate the areas where they will employ help from their mentors. They will need to understand that having a mentor does not guarantee a promotion.
5. Collaboration
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Several criteria could be used to pair up the mentors and mentees. A formal mentoring agreement may be created to refer to throughout the process. The agreement must include the goals and objectives of both the mentee and the mentor. The timelines, dos and don’ts, and how-tos should be spelled out, including how and when they will meet, and a confidentiality agreement.
6. Measurement
The proof of a successful mentoring program lies in measuring the impact of the program in two ways.
- The first is the extent to which the process has helped the mentee in achieving their developmental goals that were defined at the beginning of the program.
- The second is the degree to which the program was successful in achieving the strategic business goals. For example, improved engagement or developing leaders.
Such programs usually close the mentoring relationship, formally. The mentor and mentees may continue the relationship, formally or informally, in the future if it serves them both well.
Formal mentoring works best in an organization where employee development and organizational learning are supported and nurtured by leadership at all levels.
These leadership programs are especially geared towards mid-management and senior-level executives. All kinds of methodologies, like experiential learning, simulations, gaming, theater, and mobile learning are being used, per research from The New York Academy of Sciences. The trend has moved from one to two-day workshops to longer-term, almost four to eight-month-long learning journeys.
Everyone is beginning to understand how behavioral change requires time, continuous reinforcement, peer-to-peer learning, and practicing on the job in a non-threatening, safe environment.
"This is about shifting your mentality so that your employees are first. That means that your shareholders, clients, and bottom line come after your employees. This goes against what most people are told to focus on. Remember, if you have happy, healthy employees, then the rest will fall into place. Your clients will be well served and the bottom line will reap bigger rewards," recommended career coach Heather Moulder.
While all these initiatives are a great way of developing leaders, more needs to happen for leadership attitudes and behaviors to be deeply ingrained in the day-to-day interactions and way of thinking of the employees.
It must become a seamless practice and part of the cultural motif. One way to propagate and sustain in-house learning is through structured formal mentoring programs. There are abundant benefits of a work environment that actively supports mentoring.
Bhavna Dalal is a master-certified executive coach at MCC ICF, speaker, and author of 'Checkmate Office Politics.' She helps people develop their leadership skills, including executive presence, strategic thinking, influencing and networking, and women leadership. Her work has been featured in Forbes India, Forbes Japan, and Fortune India.