Thank you for visiting Cowden, your route to business successMentoring Leaders: Supporting Business Leaders Succeed: Richard Gourlay

Mentoring Leaders to Success in Business

Mentoring business leaders by Richard Gourlay

Mentoring Leaders for Success in Business

Mentoring leaders for success in business is essential for directors and owners in business today. Leadership is a lonely place, where leaders are expected to make critical decisions, motivate their people and ensure they plan for the future often with little support. Mentoring provides an external set of ears, eyes and thought process for senior people to openly discuss their challenges with. Mentoring support enables leaders to find and sustain their performance in their role and develop them. 

Why mentoring works for leaders by Richard Gourlay Mentoring leaders to success in business

 

Mentoring leaders by actively supporting leaders is the most effective ways to support existing and new leaders develop their leadership skills in the workplace.

 

What Successful Mentoring Looks Like

 

Successfully mentoring starts by creating a safe-space where leaders can share and discuss their challenges, openly and frankly. This is where a non-aligned, highly experienced mentor can provide an effective environment to support and develop leaders to achieve their full potential. Non-aligned mentoring provides an external sounding board which provides both diversity of opinion and external experience to build a robust mentoring experience.

 

Creating a mentoring space and time to think, reflect, plan and review progress as a leader with support and advice enabling someone to grow into their role.  Mentoring develops confidence & competence, by widening leaders thinking beyond the current operational issues to think strategically, lead effectively and succeed personally.  

 

Like to know more, then get in touch click this link.

 

 

Mentoring leaders takes experience

 

Mentoring Leaders by Richard Gourlay

 

Mentoring leaders works best when the mentor can bring a wide range of experience, knowhow  and skills to support the mentee. Mentors with experience and diversity bring the most to the table in supporting leaders succeed. Experienced mentors challenge and support leaders to succeed. Mentors who been there themselves and lived through similar challenges across a range of business environments walk and support leaders through scenarios and solutions that leaders will face in their role.

 

Experienced mentors have the knowledge and understanding of how to support leaders effectively to build their skills for the future. Being able to lead people through a wide range of challenges successfully, with ideas and advice which develops leaders skillsets.  

 

Mentors leaders with Diverse Backgrounds Add Most Value To Mentees

 

The most effective mentoring is delivered by experienced mentors who faced diverse range of workplaces.  Diversity of skills and experiences in mentoring is an important consideration in when selecting a mentor. If the mentor has only ever worked in one field, then their width of experience maybe limited to a certain sector and set off scenarios. This lack of diversity in experience of dealing with different workplace cultures, business sectors or people is often a reason why mentoring does not deliver the expected results that were intended.  Being relevant to different sectors, differing workplace cultures and to growth & development stages is where mentors can add the most value.  

 

Successful mentors need to have experience of these key diversity issues if they are to be able to add value in mentoring leaders.  Diverse business backgrounds are important if you want to understand people’s full set of needs. Width of experience matters as it brings a variety of situational experience that  have faced and increases the solutions and advice they can provide.  Experience is the second key factor that matters in the quality of mentoring. Mentors give the best advice hen they have faced the same (or similar) issues themselves, or mentored leaders through those situations before. Then the advice they can provide is based upon solid foundations.  Mentors with a limited experience often give generic advice and limited support.  

 

Richard Gourlay enables leaders to grow their skills and their business.  

 

Richard provides mentoring support packages which create confident, focused and motivated directors, leaders and senior people in organisations both large and small. Contact me here to learn more about mentoring packages: leadership mentoring.

 

Like to discuss your mentoring requirements then click here to contact Richard Gourlay click link here

 

A Mentoring Culture is Good Leadership

 

Mentoring other people is a great leadership skill to develop. Creating a mentoring culture within your workplace is an excellent way to develop a positive supportive team culture.  Mentoring brings out the best in you, in leading your people and in developing a supportive motivated and confident organisation.

 

One additional significant positive outcome from mentoring is often a cascade effect where mentored leaders recognise that they are improving their leadership  skills and that this culture may work throughout the organisation, not just at the leadership team level. 

 

Supporting Business Leaders Succeed

 

[Growth mindset

Growth and Change is Painful but not as painful as not changing.

 

Mentoring the people you lead, generates confidence, inspires trust and fast-tracks team development.  It also gets leaders closer to the frontline of their business by breaking down vertical silo mentalities, which often exists within organisations.

 

For leaders, being prepared to mentor defines what sort of leader you want to be. Mentoring is at the heart of the most successful, respected and desired leadership styles. Richard Gourlay develops positive mentoring to support leaders deliver transformational leadership. Mentoring is also at the heart of servant leadership model which are often seen as the most effective mentoring cultures.   

 

 

Effective Leadership Development

 

Effective leadership development depends upon leaders being able to inspire employees. At the heart of motivating employees is effective communication.

 

Mentoring leaders requires supporting leaders develop their existing skills in what and how they communicate. To lead you must have someone to lead people towards, a set of goals you can effectively define and then communicate in a language which engages with your people and motivates them to deliver their roles successfully. Mentoring creates that space and time to review, plan and practice these skills.

 

 

Mentoring Creates an Open Engagement Culture Throughout The Organisation

 

Another key skill leaders need to develop within their people is an open engagement culture, where ideas are cultivated throughout the organisation.  Leaders do not have all the answers, but they should be able to ask the right questions!  Learning that you do not have to be able to answer every challenge immediately and that is is all right to not know (yet) is an important element in developing your self.

 

Creating an open engagement culture is where leaders encourage the whole team to positively openly discuss and work together, actively encouraging all employees to share ideas in a positive conversation.  

 

Mentoring creates and sustains better, stronger and more resilient teams.  For leaders looking to reduce the pressure on themselves mentoring is a vital skill for themselves and others within their organisation. Leaders reduce pressure on themselves and their fellow senior people and to get the best out of their people by creating a mentoring culture.  This seen as the most effective way to sustain a positive business culture.  

 

Mentoring cultures can reduce tension, friction and frustration by fostering an open, sharing and trusting culture.

 

 

Developing A Company Mentoring Culture

 

Creating and fostering a mentoring business culture starts with leaders recognising the importance and value of mentoring. This starts with leaders and those around them. Mentoring is not a ‘tell’ culture’ from the top.  It is a shared culture where everyone pulls together in shaping and forming a mentoring culture. 

 

The true value of mentoring requires a cultural approach to work.  A mentoring culture requires both mentee and mentor to work together to develop shared mentoring skills, as summarised below. Without the right mentoring environment then these skills will not support a sustainable mentoring culture. 

 

Shared Mentoring Skills Matrix Shows the relationships between mentee and mentor in skills development between the two, by Richard Gourlay. 

 

Mentoring Culture: Shared Mentoring Skills between Mentors and Mentees

The ABC Key Mentoring skills 

There are many ways to provide mentoring to leaders, some of those come from experience and understanding, some come from being a good listener, but above all these three the ABC of mentoring are consistently seen to be the basis of good mentoring. 

A: Be Open and Honest about what mentees want to learn

Non-one is perfect, no matter what past they have had or the job title they have today. Everyone needs to learn. So owning up to errors, failings or weaknesses is vital if a mentee is going to be mentored effectively.  Without that openness and honesty, a mentoring culture will not succeed.  

A mentoring culture requires the approach that we are all continuously learning. Even the most experienced and respected have had to tackle some unfamiliar tasks and they inevitably made mistakes.

For leaders being honest about mistakes reveals vulnerability. It makes them infinitely more human, approachable and a better leader. 

 
B. Be Genuinely Interested in your People

Getting to know team members on a personal level is vital as a mentor. Genuinely understanding people supports building stronger relationships with them.  Seeing them as a person also enables them to share openly what they want to achieve.

Being genuinely interested in your mentees supports leaders to understand who they are as a person. From identifying their strengths and weaknesses, how they interact across the organisation.

Being able to listen without interruption is at the front of mentor leadership skills. This active listening skill unlocks the value a mentor provides to mentees. Good thoughtful questions that drive to the root cause of key issues for the mentees, moves the mentee forward.   

Being interested mentees growth also requires the hardest skill for a leader; do not provide the answer, ask the right question which gets them to find the answer. It is the self-discovery which makes mentoring valuable. That’s why mentees must be genuinely interested in their people.

 

C. Mentoring Must Create Value

Mentoring cultures that support both mentors and mentees require both parties to value the process of mentoring. Positive mentoring cultures develop over time and enable organisations to pull together. That allows leaders to overcome hurdles which drive the organisation forward at a faster rate than other cultures. 

To support people leaders, need to create and sustain a learning culture. Where people learn and develop themselves. Resourcing people to learn rather than just do is central to a successful organisation.

Mentoring cultures need to be supported with people development planning. Supporting people with appropriate resources is central to a learning culture. From learning and development time, through to specific skills training programmes and mentoring development are essential that leaders provide to support that culture. 

Mentoring Supports People Development Planning

People development Planning provides an active development plan upon which mentors can support mentees. Identifying which areas to focus on first, building a clear rollout plan covering key mentee priorities, this develops clarity of purpose and progress against goals.  

 For leaders to create and develop a mentoring culture these are the core drivers of mentoring and creating a learning and development culture within your organisation.  

For leaders being able to think becomes more important as conceptual work, such as planning and thinking become more important skills than technical skills in senior roles.

Like to know about our mentoring programmes to support leaders, then to get in contact now to learn more, just complete the form below lets start the conversation

Mentoring by Richard Gourlay
Developing managers into Leaders

 

Shared Mentoring Skills Matrix Shows the relationships between mentee and mentor in skills development between the two, by Richard Gourlay. 

 

Mentoring Culture: Shared Mentoring Skills between Mentors and Mentees

The ABC Key Mentoring skills 

There are many ways to provide mentoring to leaders, some of those come from experience and understanding, some come from being a good listener, but above all these three the ABC of mentoring are consistently seen to be the basis of good mentoring. 

A: Be Open and Honest about what mentees want to learn

Non-one is perfect, no matter what past they have had or the job title they have today. Everyone needs to learn. So owning up to errors, failings or weaknesses is vital if a mentee is going to be mentored effectively.  Without that openness and honesty, a mentoring culture will not succeed.  

A mentoring culture requires the approach that we are all continuously learning. Even the most experienced and respected have had to tackle some unfamiliar tasks and they inevitably made mistakes.

For leaders being honest about mistakes reveals vulnerability. It makes them infinitely more human, approachable and a better leader. 

 
B. Be Genuinely Interested in your People

Getting to know team members on a personal level is vital as a mentor. Genuinely understanding people supports building stronger relationships with them.  Seeing them as a person also enables them to share openly what they want to achieve.

Being genuinely interested in your mentees supports leaders to understand who they are as a person. From identifying their strengths and weaknesses, how they interact across the organisation.

Being able to listen without interruption is at the front of mentor leadership skills. This active listening skill unlocks the value a mentor provides to mentees. Good thoughtful questions that drive to the root cause of key issues for the mentees, moves the mentee forward.   

Being interested mentees growth also requires the hardest skill for a leader; do not provide the answer, ask the right question which gets them to find the answer. It is the self-discovery which makes mentoring valuable. That’s why mentees must be genuinely interested in their people.

 

C. Mentoring Must Create Value

Mentoring cultures that support both mentors and mentees require both parties to value the process of mentoring. Positive mentoring cultures develop over time and enable organisations to pull together. That allows leaders to overcome hurdles which drive the organisation forward at a faster rate than other cultures. 

To support people leaders, need to create and sustain a learning culture. Where people learn and develop themselves. Resourcing people to learn rather than just do is central to a successful organisation.

Mentoring cultures need to be supported with people development planning. Supporting people with appropriate resources is central to a learning culture. From learning and development time, through to specific skills training programmes and mentoring development are essential that leaders provide to support that culture. 

Mentoring Supports People Development Planning

People development Planning provides an active development plan upon which mentors can support mentees. Identifying which areas to focus on first, building a clear rollout plan covering key mentee priorities, this develops clarity of purpose and progress against goals.  

 For leaders to create and develop a mentoring culture these are the core drivers of mentoring and creating a learning and development culture within your organisation.  

For leaders being able to think becomes more important as conceptual work, such as planning and thinking become more important skills than technical skills in senior roles.

Like to know about our mentoring programmes to support leaders, then to get in contact now to learn more, just complete the form below lets start the conversation

Mentoring by Richard Gourlay
Developing managers into Leaders

 

Shared Mentoring Skills Matrix Shows the relationships between mentee and mentor in skills development between the two, by Richard Gourlay. 

 

Mentoring Culture: Shared Mentoring Skills between Mentors and Mentees

The ABC Key Mentoring skills 

There are many ways to provide mentoring to leaders, some of those come from experience and understanding, some come from being a good listener, but above all these three the ABC of mentoring are consistently seen to be the basis of good mentoring. 

 

 
 
A: Be Open and Honest about what mentees want to learn

 

 

Non-one is perfect, no matter what past they have had or the job title they have today. Everyone needs to learn. So owning up to errors, failings or weaknesses is vital if a mentee is going to be mentored effectively.  Without that openness and honesty, a mentoring culture will not succeed.  

 

A mentoring culture requires the approach that we are all continuously learning. Even the most experienced and respected have had to tackle some unfamiliar tasks and they inevitably made mistakes.

 

For leaders being honest about mistakes reveals vulnerability. It makes them infinitely more human, approachable and a better leader. 

 
 
B. Be Genuinely Interested in your People

 

 

Getting to know team members on a personal level is vital as a mentor. Genuinely understanding people supports building stronger relationships with them.  Seeing them as a person also enables them to share openly what they want to achieve.

 

Being genuinely interested in your mentees supports leaders to understand who they are as a person. From identifying their strengths and weaknesses, how they interact across the organisation.

 

Being able to listen without interruption is at the front of mentor leadership skills. This active listening skill unlocks the value a mentor provides to mentees. Good thoughtful questions that drive to the root cause of key issues for the mentees, moves the mentee forward. 

 

 

Being interested mentees growth also requires the hardest skill for a leader; do not provide the answer, ask the right question which gets them to find the answer. It is the self-discovery which makes mentoring valuable. That’s why mentees must be genuinely interested in their people.

 
 

C. Mentoring Must Create Value

 

 

Mentoring cultures that support both mentors and mentees require both parties to value the process of mentoring. Positive mentoring cultures develop over time and enable organisations to pull together. That allows leaders to overcome hurdles which drive the organisation forward at a faster rate than other cultures. 

 

To support people leaders, need to create and sustain a learning culture. Where people learn and develop themselves. Resourcing people to learn rather than just do is central to a successful organisation.

 

Mentoring cultures need to be supported with people development planning. Supporting people with appropriate resources is central to a learning culture. From learning and development time, through to specific skills training programmes and mentoring development are essential that leaders provide to support that culture. 

 

Mentoring is all about the ABC’s, be honest, interested and create value for the director so that they understand the value that being mentored delivers to their role.  

 

 

Mentoring Supports People Development Planning

 

People development Planning provides an active development plan upon which mentors can support mentees. Identifying which areas to focus on first, building a clear rollout plan covering key mentee priorities, this develops clarity of purpose and progress against goals.  

 

For leaders to create and develop a mentoring culture these are the core drivers of mentoring and creating a learning and development culture within your organisation.  

 

For leaders being able to think becomes more important as conceptual work, such as planning and thinking become more important skills than technical skills in senior roles.

 

Like to know about our mentoring programmes to support leaders, then to get in contact now to learn more, just complete the form below lets start the conversation.

 

Mentoring by Richard Gourlay
Developing managers into Leaders

Mentoring Leaders For Success

Mentoring leaders for success is essential in business today. Leadership is a lonely place, where leaders are expected to make critical decisions, motivate their people and ensure they plan for the future often with little support. Mentoring provides an external set of ears, eyes and thought process for senior people to openly discuss their challenges with. Mentoring support enables leaders to find and sustain their performance in their role and develop them. 

Why mentoring works for leaders by Richard Gourlay Mentoring leaders to success in business

 Mentoring leaders by actively supporting leaders is the most effective ways to support existing and new leaders develop their leadership skills in the workplace.

What Successful Mentoring Looks Like

Successfully mentoring starts by creating a safe-space where leaders can share and discuss their challenges, openly and frankly. This is where a non-aligned, highly experienced mentor can provide an effective environment to support and develop leaders to achieve their full potential. Non-aligned mentoring provides an external sounding board which provides both diversity of opinion and external experience to build a robust mentoring experience.

Creating a mentoring space and time to think, reflect, plan and review progress as a leader with support and advice enabling someone to grow into their role.  Mentoring develops confidence & competence, by widening leaders thinking beyond the current operational issues to think strategically, lead effectively and succeed personally.  

Like to know more, then get in touch click this link.

 

 

In Leadership Mentoring Experience Matters

Mentoring Leaders by Richard Gourlay

Mentoring works best when the mentor can bring a wide range of experience, knowhow  and skills to support the mentee. Mentors with experience and diversity bring the most to the table in supporting leaders succeed. Experienced mentors challenge and support leaders to succeed. Mentors who been there themselves and lived through similar challenges across a range of business environments walk and support leaders through scenarios and solutions that leaders will face in their role.

Experienced mentors have the knowledge and understanding of how to support leaders effectively to build their skills for the future. Being able to lead people through a wide range of challenges successfully, with ideas and advice which develops leaders skillsets.  

Mentors with Diverse Backgrounds Add Most Value To Mentees

The most effective mentoring is delivered by experienced mentors who faced diverse range of workplaces.  Diversity of skills and experiences in mentoring is another important consideration in when selecting a mentor. If the mentor has only ever worked in one field, then their width of experience maybe limited to a certain sector and set off scenarios. This lack of diversity in experience of dealing with different workplace cultures, business sectors or people is often a reason why mentoring does not deliver.  Being relevant to different sectors, differing workplace cultures and to growth & development stages is where mentors can add the most value.  

Successful mentors need to have experience of these key diversity issues if they are to be able to add value in mentoring leaders.  Diverse business backgrounds is important if you want t understand 

Having successfully mentored leaders for over twenty years Richard Gourlay enables leaders to grow their skills and their business.  

Richard provides mentoring support packages which create confident, focused and motivated directors, leaders and senior people in organisations both large and small. Contact me here to learn more about mentoring packages: leadership mentoring.

Like to discuss your mentoring requirements then click here to contact Richard Gourlay click link here

 

A Mentoring Culture is Good Leadership

Mentoring other people is a great leadership skill to develop. Creating a mentoring culture within your workplace is an excellent way to develop a positive supportive team culture.  Mentoring brings out the best in you, in leading your people and in developing a supportive motivated and confident organisation.

One additional significant positive outcome from mentoring is often a cascade effect where mentored leaders recognise that they are improving their leadership  skills and that this culture may work throughout the organisation, not just at the leadership team level. 

 

Supporting Business Leaders Succeed

 

[Growth mindset

Growth and Change is Painful but not as painful as not changing.

Mentoring the people you lead, generates confidence, inspires trust and fast-tracks team development.  It also gets leaders closer to the frontline of their business by breaking down vertical silo mentalities, which often exists within organisations.

For leaders, being prepared to mentor defines what sort of leader you want to be. Mentoring is at the heart of the most successful, respected and desired leadership styles. Richard Gourlay develops positive mentoring to support leaders deliver transformational leadership. Mentoring is also at the heart of servant leadership model which are often seen as the most effective mentoring cultures.   

 

Effective Leadership Development

Effective leadership development depends upon leaders being able to inspire employees. At the heart of motivating employees is effective communication.

Mentoring leaders requires supporting leaders develop their existing skills in what and how they communicate. To lead you must have someone to lead people towards, a set of goals you can effectively define and then communicate in a language which engages with your people and motivates them to deliver their roles successfully. Mentoring creates that space and time to review, plan and practice these skills.

 

Mentoring Creates an Open Engagement Culture Throughout The Organisation

Another key skill leaders need to develop within their people is an open engagement culture, where ideas are cultivated throughout the organisation.  Leaders do not have all the answers, but they should be able to ask the right questions!  Learning that you do not have to be able to answer every challenge immediately and that is is all right to not know (yet) is an important element in developing your self.

Creating an open engagement culture is where leaders encourage the whole team to positively openly discuss and work together, actively encouraging all employees to share ideas in a positive conversation.  

Mentoring creates and sustains better, stronger and more resilient teams.  For leaders looking to reduce the pressure on themselves mentoring is a vital skill for themselves and others within their organisation. Leaders reduce pressure on themselves and their fellow senior people and to get the best out of their people by creating a mentoring culture.  This seen as the most effective way to sustain a positive business culture.  

Mentoring cultures can reduce tension, friction and frustration by fostering an open, sharing and trusting culture.

 

Developing A Company Mentoring Culture

Creating and fostering a mentoring business culture starts with leaders recognising the importance and value of mentoring. This starts with leaders and those around them. Mentoring is not a ‘tell’ culture’ from the top.  It is a shared culture where everyone pulls together in shaping and forming a mentoring culture. 

The true value of mentoring requires a cultural approach to work.  A mentoring culture requires both mentee and mentor to work together to develop shared mentoring skills, as summarised below. Without the right mentoring environment then these skills will not support a sustainable mentoring culture. 

 

Shared Mentoring Skills Matrix Shows the relationships between mentee and mentor in skills development between the two, by Richard Gourlay. 

 

Mentoring Culture: Shared Mentoring Skills between Mentors and Mentees

The ABC Key Mentoring skills 

There are many ways to provide mentoring to leaders, some of those come from experience and understanding, some come from being a good listener, but above all these three the ABC of mentoring are consistently seen to be the basis of good mentoring. 

A: Be Open and Honest about what mentees want to learn

Non-one is perfect, no matter what past they have had or the job title they have today. Everyone needs to learn. So owning up to errors, failings or weaknesses is vital if a mentee is going to be mentored effectively.  Without that openness and honesty, a mentoring culture will not succeed.  

A mentoring culture requires the approach that we are all continuously learning. Even the most experienced and respected have had to tackle some unfamiliar tasks and they inevitably made mistakes.

For leaders being honest about mistakes reveals vulnerability. It makes them infinitely more human, approachable and a better leader. 

 
B. Be Genuinely Interested in your People

Getting to know team members on a personal level is vital as a mentor. Genuinely understanding people supports building stronger relationships with them.  Seeing them as a person also enables them to share openly what they want to achieve.

Being genuinely interested in your mentees supports leaders to understand who they are as a person. From identifying their strengths and weaknesses, how they interact across the organisation.

Being able to listen without interruption is at the front of mentor leadership skills. This active listening skill unlocks the value a mentor provides to mentees. Good thoughtful questions that drive to the root cause of key issues for the mentees, moves the mentee forward.   

Being interested mentees growth also requires the hardest skill for a leader; do not provide the answer, ask the right question which gets them to find the answer. It is the self-discovery which makes mentoring valuable. That’s why mentees must be genuinely interested in their people.

 

C. Mentoring Must Create Value

Mentoring cultures that support both mentors and mentees require both parties to value the process of mentoring. Positive mentoring cultures develop over time and enable organisations to pull together. That allows leaders to overcome hurdles which drive the organisation forward at a faster rate than other cultures. 

To support people leaders, need to create and sustain a learning culture. Where people learn and develop themselves. Resourcing people to learn rather than just do is central to a successful organisation.

Mentoring cultures need to be supported with people development planning. Supporting people with appropriate resources is central to a learning culture. From learning and development time, through to specific skills training programmes and mentoring development are essential that leaders provide to support that culture. 

Mentoring Supports People Development Planning

People development Planning provides an active development plan upon which mentors can support mentees. Identifying which areas to focus on first, building a clear rollout plan covering key mentee priorities, this develops clarity of purpose and progress against goals.  

 For leaders to create and develop a mentoring culture these are the core drivers of mentoring and creating a learning and development culture within your organisation.  

For leaders being able to think becomes more important as conceptual work, such as planning and thinking become more important skills than technical skills in senior roles.

Like to know about our mentoring programmes to support leaders, then to get in contact now to learn more, just complete the form below lets start the conversation

Mentoring by Richard Gourlay
Developing managers into Leaders

 

Shared Mentoring Skills Matrix Shows the relationships between mentee and mentor in skills development between the two, by Richard Gourlay. 

 

Mentoring Culture: Shared Mentoring Skills between Mentors and Mentees

The ABC Key Mentoring skills 

There are many ways to provide mentoring to leaders, some of those come from experience and understanding, some come from being a good listener, but above all these three the ABC of mentoring are consistently seen to be the basis of good mentoring. 

 

 
 
A: Be Open and Honest about what mentees want to learn

 

 

Non-one is perfect, no matter what past they have had or the job title they have today. Everyone needs to learn. So owning up to errors, failings or weaknesses is vital if a mentee is going to be mentored effectively.  Without that openness and honesty, a mentoring culture will not succeed.  

 

A mentoring culture requires the approach that we are all continuously learning. Even the most experienced and respected have had to tackle some unfamiliar tasks and they inevitably made mistakes.

 

For leaders being honest about mistakes reveals vulnerability. It makes them infinitely more human, approachable and a better leader. 

 
 
B. Be Genuinely Interested in your People

 

 

Getting to know team members on a personal level is vital as a mentor. Genuinely understanding people supports building stronger relationships with them.  Seeing them as a person also enables them to share openly what they want to achieve.

 

Being genuinely interested in your mentees supports leaders to understand who they are as a person. From identifying their strengths and weaknesses, how they interact across the organisation.

 

Being able to listen without interruption is at the front of mentor leadership skills. This active listening skill unlocks the value a mentor provides to mentees. Good thoughtful questions that drive to the root cause of key issues for the mentees, moves the mentee forward. 

 

 

Being interested mentees growth also requires the hardest skill for a leader; do not provide the answer, ask the right question which gets them to find the answer. It is the self-discovery which makes mentoring valuable. That’s why mentees must be genuinely interested in their people.

 
 

C. Mentoring Must Create Value

 

 

Mentoring cultures that support both mentors and mentees require both parties to value the process of mentoring. Positive mentoring cultures develop over time and enable organisations to pull together. That allows leaders to overcome hurdles which drive the organisation forward at a faster rate than other cultures. 

 

To support people leaders, need to create and sustain a learning culture. Where people learn and develop themselves. Resourcing people to learn rather than just do is central to a successful organisation.

 

Mentoring cultures need to be supported with people development planning. Supporting people with appropriate resources is central to a learning culture. From learning and development time, through to specific skills training programmes and mentoring development are essential that leaders provide to support that culture. 

 

Mentoring is all about the ABC’s, be honest, interested and create value for the director so that they understand the value that being mentored delivers to their role.  

 

 

Mentoring Supports People Development Planning

 

People development Planning provides an active development plan upon which mentors can support mentees. Identifying which areas to focus on first, building a clear rollout plan covering key mentee priorities, this develops clarity of purpose and progress against goals.  

 

For leaders to create and develop a mentoring culture these are the core drivers of mentoring and creating a learning and development culture within your organisation.  

 

For leaders being able to think becomes more important as conceptual work, such as planning and thinking become more important skills than technical skills in senior roles.

 

Like to know about our mentoring programmes to support leaders, then to get in contact now to learn more, just complete the form below lets start the conversation.

 

Mentoring by Richard Gourlay
Developing managers into Leaders

Mentoring Leaders For Success

Mentoring leaders for success is essential in business today. Leadership is a lonely place, where leaders are expected to make critical decisions, motivate their people and ensure they plan for the future often with little support. Mentoring provides an external set of ears, eyes and thought process for senior people to openly discuss their challenges with. Mentoring support enables leaders to find and sustain their performance in their role and develop them. 

Why mentoring works for leaders by Richard Gourlay Mentoring leaders to success in business

 Mentoring leaders by actively supporting leaders is the most effective ways to support existing and new leaders develop their leadership skills in the workplace.

What Successful Mentoring Looks Like

Successfully mentoring starts by creating a safe-space where leaders can share and discuss their challenges, openly and frankly. This is where a non-aligned, highly experienced mentor can provide an effective environment to support and develop leaders to achieve their full potential. Non-aligned mentoring provides an external sounding board which provides both diversity of opinion and external experience to build a robust mentoring experience.

Creating a mentoring space and time to think, reflect, plan and review progress as a leader with support and advice enabling someone to grow into their role.  Mentoring develops confidence & competence, by widening leaders thinking beyond the current operational issues to think strategically, lead effectively and succeed personally.  

Like to know more, then get in touch click this link.

 

 

In Leadership Mentoring Experience Matters

Mentoring Leaders by Richard Gourlay

Mentoring works best when the mentor can bring a wide range of experience, knowhow  and skills to support the mentee. Mentors with experience and diversity bring the most to the table in supporting leaders succeed. Experienced mentors challenge and support leaders to succeed. Mentors who been there themselves and lived through similar challenges across a range of business environments walk and support leaders through scenarios and solutions that leaders will face in their role.

Experienced mentors have the knowledge and understanding of how to support leaders effectively to build their skills for the future. Being able to lead people through a wide range of challenges successfully, with ideas and advice which develops leaders skillsets.  

Mentors with Diverse Backgrounds Add Most Value To Mentees

The most effective mentoring is delivered by experienced mentors who faced diverse range of workplaces.  Diversity of skills and experiences in mentoring is another important consideration in when selecting a mentor. If the mentor has only ever worked in one field, then their width of experience maybe limited to a certain sector and set off scenarios. This lack of diversity in experience of dealing with different workplace cultures, business sectors or people is often a reason why mentoring does not deliver.  Being relevant to different sectors, differing workplace cultures and to growth & development stages is where mentors can add the most value.  

Successful mentors need to have experience of these key diversity issues if they are to be able to add value in mentoring leaders.  Diverse business backgrounds is important if you want t understand 

Having successfully mentored leaders for over twenty years Richard Gourlay enables leaders to grow their skills and their business.  

Richard provides mentoring support packages which create confident, focused and motivated directors, leaders and senior people in organisations both large and small. Contact me here to learn more about mentoring packages: leadership mentoring.

Like to discuss your mentoring requirements then click here to contact Richard Gourlay click link here

 

A Mentoring Culture is Good Leadership

Mentoring other people is a great leadership skill to develop. Creating a mentoring culture within your workplace is an excellent way to develop a positive supportive team culture.  Mentoring brings out the best in you, in leading your people and in developing a supportive motivated and confident organisation.

One additional significant positive outcome from mentoring is often a cascade effect where mentored leaders recognise that they are improving their leadership  skills and that this culture may work throughout the organisation, not just at the leadership team level. 

 

Supporting Business Leaders Succeed

 

[Growth mindset

Growth and Change is Painful but not as painful as not changing.

Mentoring the people you lead, generates confidence, inspires trust and fast-tracks team development.  It also gets leaders closer to the frontline of their business by breaking down vertical silo mentalities, which often exists within organisations.

For leaders, being prepared to mentor defines what sort of leader you want to be. Mentoring is at the heart of the most successful, respected and desired leadership styles. Richard Gourlay develops positive mentoring to support leaders deliver transformational leadership. Mentoring is also at the heart of servant leadership model which are often seen as the most effective mentoring cultures.   

 

Effective Leadership Development

Effective leadership development depends upon leaders being able to inspire employees. At the heart of motivating employees is effective communication.

Mentoring leaders requires supporting leaders develop their existing skills in what and how they communicate. To lead you must have someone to lead people towards, a set of goals you can effectively define and then communicate in a language which engages with your people and motivates them to deliver their roles successfully. Mentoring creates that space and time to review, plan and practice these skills.

 

Mentoring Creates an Open Engagement Culture Throughout The Organisation

Another key skill leaders need to develop within their people is an open engagement culture, where ideas are cultivated throughout the organisation.  Leaders do not have all the answers, but they should be able to ask the right questions!  Learning that you do not have to be able to answer every challenge immediately and that is is all right to not know (yet) is an important element in developing your self.

Creating an open engagement culture is where leaders encourage the whole team to positively openly discuss and work together, actively encouraging all employees to share ideas in a positive conversation.  

Mentoring creates and sustains better, stronger and more resilient teams.  For leaders looking to reduce the pressure on themselves mentoring is a vital skill for themselves and others within their organisation. Leaders reduce pressure on themselves and their fellow senior people and to get the best out of their people by creating a mentoring culture.  This seen as the most effective way to sustain a positive business culture.  

Mentoring cultures can reduce tension, friction and frustration by fostering an open, sharing and trusting culture.

 

Developing A Company Mentoring Culture

Creating and fostering a mentoring business culture starts with leaders recognising the importance and value of mentoring. This starts with leaders and those around them. Mentoring is not a ‘tell’ culture’ from the top.  It is a shared culture where everyone pulls together in shaping and forming a mentoring culture. 

The true value of mentoring requires a cultural approach to work.  A mentoring culture requires both mentee and mentor to work together to develop shared mentoring skills, as summarised below. Without the right mentoring environment then these skills will not support a sustainable mentoring culture. 

 

Shared Mentoring Skills Matrix Shows the relationships between mentee and mentor in skills development between the two, by Richard Gourlay. 

 

Mentoring Culture: Shared Mentoring Skills between Mentors and Mentees

The ABC Key Mentoring skills 

There are many ways to provide mentoring to leaders, some of those come from experience and understanding, some come from being a good listener, but above all these three the ABC of mentoring are consistently seen to be the basis of good mentoring. 

A: Be Open and Honest about what mentees want to learn

Non-one is perfect, no matter what past they have had or the job title they have today. Everyone needs to learn. So owning up to errors, failings or weaknesses is vital if a mentee is going to be mentored effectively.  Without that openness and honesty, a mentoring culture will not succeed.  

A mentoring culture requires the approach that we are all continuously learning. Even the most experienced and respected have had to tackle some unfamiliar tasks and they inevitably made mistakes.

For leaders being honest about mistakes reveals vulnerability. It makes them infinitely more human, approachable and a better leader. 

 
B. Be Genuinely Interested in your People

Getting to know team members on a personal level is vital as a mentor. Genuinely understanding people supports building stronger relationships with them.  Seeing them as a person also enables them to share openly what they want to achieve.

Being genuinely interested in your mentees supports leaders to understand who they are as a person. From identifying their strengths and weaknesses, how they interact across the organisation.

Being able to listen without interruption is at the front of mentor leadership skills. This active listening skill unlocks the value a mentor provides to mentees. Good thoughtful questions that drive to the root cause of key issues for the mentees, moves the mentee forward.   

Being interested mentees growth also requires the hardest skill for a leader; do not provide the answer, ask the right question which gets them to find the answer. It is the self-discovery which makes mentoring valuable. That’s why mentees must be genuinely interested in their people.

 

C. Mentoring Must Create Value

Mentoring cultures that support both mentors and mentees require both parties to value the process of mentoring. Positive mentoring cultures develop over time and enable organisations to pull together. That allows leaders to overcome hurdles which drive the organisation forward at a faster rate than other cultures. 

To support people leaders, need to create and sustain a learning culture. Where people learn and develop themselves. Resourcing people to learn rather than just do is central to a successful organisation.

Mentoring cultures need to be supported with people development planning. Supporting people with appropriate resources is central to a learning culture. From learning and development time, through to specific skills training programmes and mentoring development are essential that leaders provide to support that culture. 

Mentoring Supports People Development Planning

People development Planning provides an active development plan upon which mentors can support mentees. Identifying which areas to focus on first, building a clear rollout plan covering key mentee priorities, this develops clarity of purpose and progress against goals.  

 For leaders to create and develop a mentoring culture these are the core drivers of mentoring and creating a learning and development culture within your organisation.  

For leaders being able to think becomes more important as conceptual work, such as planning and thinking become more important skills than technical skills in senior roles.

Like to know about our mentoring programmes to support leaders, then to get in contact now to learn more, just complete the form below lets start the conversation

Mentoring by Richard Gourlay
Developing managers into Leaders

 

Shared Mentoring Skills Matrix Shows the relationships between mentee and mentor in skills development between the two, by Richard Gourlay. 

 

Mentoring Culture: Shared Mentoring Skills between Mentors and Mentees

The ABC Key Mentoring skills 

There are many ways to provide mentoring to leaders, some of those come from experience and understanding, some come from being a good listener, but above all these three the ABC of mentoring are consistently seen to be the basis of good mentoring. 

 

 
 
A: Be Open and Honest about what mentees want to learn

 

 

Non-one is perfect, no matter what past they have had or the job title they have today. Everyone needs to learn. So owning up to errors, failings or weaknesses is vital if a mentee is going to be mentored effectively.  Without that openness and honesty, a mentoring culture will not succeed.  

 

A mentoring culture requires the approach that we are all continuously learning. Even the most experienced and respected have had to tackle some unfamiliar tasks and they inevitably made mistakes.

 

For leaders being honest about mistakes reveals vulnerability. It makes them infinitely more human, approachable and a better leader. 

 
 
B. Be Genuinely Interested in your People

 

 

Getting to know team members on a personal level is vital as a mentor. Genuinely understanding people supports building stronger relationships with them.  Seeing them as a person also enables them to share openly what they want to achieve.

 

Being genuinely interested in your mentees supports leaders to understand who they are as a person. From identifying their strengths and weaknesses, how they interact across the organisation.

 

Being able to listen without interruption is at the front of mentor leadership skills. This active listening skill unlocks the value a mentor provides to mentees. Good thoughtful questions that drive to the root cause of key issues for the mentees, moves the mentee forward. 

 

 

Being interested mentees growth also requires the hardest skill for a leader; do not provide the answer, ask the right question which gets them to find the answer. It is the self-discovery which makes mentoring valuable. That’s why mentees must be genuinely interested in their people.

 
 

C. Mentoring Must Create Value

 

 

Mentoring cultures that support both mentors and mentees require both parties to value the process of mentoring. Positive mentoring cultures develop over time and enable organisations to pull together. That allows leaders to overcome hurdles which drive the organisation forward at a faster rate than other cultures. 

 

To support people leaders, need to create and sustain a learning culture. Where people learn and develop themselves. Resourcing people to learn rather than just do is central to a successful organisation.

 

Mentoring cultures need to be supported with people development planning. Supporting people with appropriate resources is central to a learning culture. From learning and development time, through to specific skills training programmes and mentoring development are essential that leaders provide to support that culture. 

 

Mentoring is all about the ABC’s, be honest, interested and create value for the director so that they understand the value that being mentored delivers to their role.  

 

 

Mentoring Supports People Development Planning

 

People development Planning provides an active development plan upon which mentors can support mentees. Identifying which areas to focus on first, building a clear rollout plan covering key mentee priorities, this develops clarity of purpose and progress against goals.  

 

For leaders to create and develop a mentoring culture these are the core drivers of mentoring and creating a learning and development culture within your organisation.  

 

For leaders being able to think becomes more important as conceptual work, such as planning and thinking become more important skills than technical skills in senior roles.

 

Like to know about our mentoring programmes to support leaders, then to get in contact now to learn more, just complete the form below lets start the conversation.

 

Mentoring Leaders for Success in Business

Mentoring Leaders For Success in Business

 

Mentoring leaders for success in business is essential for directors and owners in business today. Leadership is a lonely place, where leaders are expected to make critical decisions, motivate their people and ensure they plan for the future often with little support. Mentoring provides an external set of ears, eyes and thought process for senior people to openly discuss their challenges with. Mentoring support enables leaders to find and sustain their performance in their role and develop them. 

Why mentoring works for leaders by Richard Gourlay Mentoring leaders to success in business

 

Mentoring leaders by actively supporting leaders is the most effective ways to support existing and new leaders develop their leadership skills in the workplace.

 

What Successful Mentoring Looks Like

 

Successfully mentoring starts by creating a safe-space where leaders can share and discuss their challenges, openly and frankly. This is where a non-aligned, highly experienced mentor can provide an effective environment to support and develop leaders to achieve their full potential. Non-aligned mentoring provides an external sounding board which provides both diversity of opinion and external experience to build a robust mentoring experience.

 

Creating a mentoring space and time to think, reflect, plan and review progress as a leader with support and advice enabling someone to grow into their role.  Mentoring develops confidence & competence, by widening leaders thinking beyond the current operational issues to think strategically, lead effectively and succeed personally.  

 

Like to know more, then get in touch click this link.

 

 

In Leadership Mentoring Experience Matters

 

Mentoring Leaders by Richard Gourlay

 

Mentoring works best when the mentor can bring a wide range of experience, knowhow  and skills to support the mentee. Mentors with experience and diversity bring the most to the table in supporting leaders succeed. Experienced mentors challenge and support leaders to succeed. Mentors who been there themselves and lived through similar challenges across a range of business environments walk and support leaders through scenarios and solutions that leaders will face in their role.

 

Experienced mentors have the knowledge and understanding of how to support leaders effectively to build their skills for the future. Being able to lead people through a wide range of challenges successfully, with ideas and advice which develops leaders skillsets.  

 

Mentors with Diverse Backgrounds Add Most Value To Mentees

 

The most effective mentoring is delivered by experienced mentors who faced diverse range of workplaces.  Diversity of skills and experiences in mentoring is another important consideration in when selecting a mentor. If the mentor has only ever worked in one field, then their width of experience maybe limited to a certain sector and set off scenarios. This lack of diversity in experience of dealing with different workplace cultures, business sectors or people is often a reason why mentoring does not deliver.  Being relevant to different sectors, differing workplace cultures and to growth & development stages is where mentors can add the most value.  

 

Successful mentors need to have experience of these key diversity issues if they are to be able to add value in mentoring leaders.  Diverse business backgrounds is important if you want t understand 

 

Having successfully mentored leaders for over twenty years Richard Gourlay enables leaders to grow their skills and their business.  

 

Richard provides mentoring support packages which create confident, focused and motivated directors, leaders and senior people in organisations both large and small. Contact me here to learn more about mentoring packages: leadership mentoring.

 

Like to discuss your mentoring requirements then click here to contact Richard Gourlay click link here

 

A Mentoring Culture is Good Leadership

 

Mentoring other people is a great leadership skill to develop. Creating a mentoring culture within your workplace is an excellent way to develop a positive supportive team culture.  Mentoring brings out the best in you, in leading your people and in developing a supportive motivated and confident organisation.

 

One additional significant positive outcome from mentoring is often a cascade effect where mentored leaders recognise that they are improving their leadership  skills and that this culture may work throughout the organisation, not just at the leadership team level. 

 

Supporting Business Leaders Succeed

 

[Growth mindset

Growth and Change is Painful but not as painful as not changing.

 

Mentoring the people you lead, generates confidence, inspires trust and fast-tracks team development.  It also gets leaders closer to the frontline of their business by breaking down vertical silo mentalities, which often exists within organisations.

 

For leaders, being prepared to mentor defines what sort of leader you want to be. Mentoring is at the heart of the most successful, respected and desired leadership styles. Richard Gourlay develops positive mentoring to support leaders deliver transformational leadership. Mentoring is also at the heart of servant leadership model which are often seen as the most effective mentoring cultures.   

 

 

Effective Leadership Development

 

Effective leadership development depends upon leaders being able to inspire employees. At the heart of motivating employees is effective communication.

 

Mentoring leaders requires supporting leaders develop their existing skills in what and how they communicate. To lead you must have someone to lead people towards, a set of goals you can effectively define and then communicate in a language which engages with your people and motivates them to deliver their roles successfully. Mentoring creates that space and time to review, plan and practice these skills.

 

 

Mentoring Creates an Open Engagement Culture Throughout The Organisation

 

Another key skill leaders need to develop within their people is an open engagement culture, where ideas are cultivated throughout the organisation.  Leaders do not have all the answers, but they should be able to ask the right questions!  Learning that you do not have to be able to answer every challenge immediately and that is is all right to not know (yet) is an important element in developing your self.

 

Creating an open engagement culture is where leaders encourage the whole team to positively openly discuss and work together, actively encouraging all employees to share ideas in a positive conversation.  

 

Mentoring creates and sustains better, stronger and more resilient teams.  For leaders looking to reduce the pressure on themselves mentoring is a vital skill for themselves and others within their organisation. Leaders reduce pressure on themselves and their fellow senior people and to get the best out of their people by creating a mentoring culture.  This seen as the most effective way to sustain a positive business culture.  

 

Mentoring cultures can reduce tension, friction and frustration by fostering an open, sharing and trusting culture.

 

 

Developing A Company Mentoring Culture

 

Creating and fostering a mentoring business culture starts with leaders recognising the importance and value of mentoring. This starts with leaders and those around them. Mentoring is not a ‘tell’ culture’ from the top.  It is a shared culture where everyone pulls together in shaping and forming a mentoring culture. 

 

The true value of mentoring requires a cultural approach to work.  A mentoring culture requires both mentee and mentor to work together to develop shared mentoring skills, as summarised below. Without the right mentoring environment then these skills will not support a sustainable mentoring culture. 

 

Shared Mentoring Skills Matrix Shows the relationships between mentee and mentor in skills development between the two, by Richard Gourlay. 

 

Mentoring Culture: Shared Mentoring Skills between Mentors and Mentees

The ABC Key Mentoring skills 

There are many ways to provide mentoring to leaders, some of those come from experience and understanding, some come from being a good listener, but above all these three the ABC of mentoring are consistently seen to be the basis of good mentoring. 

 

 
 
A: Be Open and Honest about what mentees want to learn

 

 

Non-one is perfect, no matter what past they have had or the job title they have today. Everyone needs to learn. So owning up to errors, failings or weaknesses is vital if a mentee is going to be mentored effectively.  Without that openness and honesty, a mentoring culture will not succeed.  

 

A mentoring culture requires the approach that we are all continuously learning. Even the most experienced and respected have had to tackle some unfamiliar tasks and they inevitably made mistakes.

 

For leaders being honest about mistakes reveals vulnerability. It makes them infinitely more human, approachable and a better leader. 

 
 
B. Be Genuinely Interested in your People

 

 

Getting to know team members on a personal level is vital as a mentor. Genuinely understanding people supports building stronger relationships with them.  Seeing them as a person also enables them to share openly what they want to achieve.

 

Being genuinely interested in your mentees supports leaders to understand who they are as a person. From identifying their strengths and weaknesses, how they interact across the organisation.

 

Being able to listen without interruption is at the front of mentor leadership skills. This active listening skill unlocks the value a mentor provides to mentees. Good thoughtful questions that drive to the root cause of key issues for the mentees, moves the mentee forward. 

 

 

Being interested mentees growth also requires the hardest skill for a leader; do not provide the answer, ask the right question which gets them to find the answer. It is the self-discovery which makes mentoring valuable. That’s why mentees must be genuinely interested in their people.

 
 

C. Mentoring Must Create Value

 

 

Mentoring cultures that support both mentors and mentees require both parties to value the process of mentoring. Positive mentoring cultures develop over time and enable organisations to pull together. That allows leaders to overcome hurdles which drive the organisation forward at a faster rate than other cultures. 

 

To support people leaders, need to create and sustain a learning culture. Where people learn and develop themselves. Resourcing people to learn rather than just do is central to a successful organisation.

 

Mentoring cultures need to be supported with people development planning. Supporting people with appropriate resources is central to a learning culture. From learning and development time, through to specific skills training programmes and mentoring development are essential that leaders provide to support that culture. 

 

Mentoring is all about the ABC’s, be honest, interested and create value for the director so that they understand the value that being mentored delivers to their role.  

 

 

Mentoring Supports People Development Planning

 

People development Planning provides an active development plan upon which mentors can support mentees. Identifying which areas to focus on first, building a clear rollout plan covering key mentee priorities, this develops clarity of purpose and progress against goals.  

 

For leaders to create and develop a mentoring culture these are the core drivers of mentoring and creating a learning and development culture within your organisation.  

 

For leaders being able to think becomes more important as conceptual work, such as planning and thinking become more important skills than technical skills in senior roles.

 

Like to know about our mentoring programmes to support leaders, then to get in contact now to learn more, just complete the form below lets start the conversation.

 

Mentoring by Richard Gourlay
Developing managers into Leaders

Mentoring Leaders For Success

Mentoring leaders for success is essential in business today. Leadership is a lonely place, where leaders are expected to make critical decisions, motivate their people and ensure they plan for the future often with little support. Mentoring provides an external set of ears, eyes and thought process for senior people to openly discuss their challenges with. Mentoring support enables leaders to find and sustain their performance in their role and develop them. 

Why mentoring works for leaders by Richard Gourlay Mentoring leaders to success in business

 Mentoring leaders by actively supporting leaders is the most effective ways to support existing and new leaders develop their leadership skills in the workplace.

What Successful Mentoring Looks Like

Successfully mentoring starts by creating a safe-space where leaders can share and discuss their challenges, openly and frankly. This is where a non-aligned, highly experienced mentor can provide an effective environment to support and develop leaders to achieve their full potential. Non-aligned mentoring provides an external sounding board which provides both diversity of opinion and external experience to build a robust mentoring experience.

Creating a mentoring space and time to think, reflect, plan and review progress as a leader with support and advice enabling someone to grow into their role.  Mentoring develops confidence & competence, by widening leaders thinking beyond the current operational issues to think strategically, lead effectively and succeed personally.  

Like to know more, then get in touch click this link.

 

 

In Leadership Mentoring Experience Matters

Mentoring Leaders by Richard Gourlay

Mentoring works best when the mentor can bring a wide range of experience, knowhow  and skills to support the mentee. Mentors with experience and diversity bring the most to the table in supporting leaders succeed. Experienced mentors challenge and support leaders to succeed. Mentors who been there themselves and lived through similar challenges across a range of business environments walk and support leaders through scenarios and solutions that leaders will face in their role.

Experienced mentors have the knowledge and understanding of how to support leaders effectively to build their skills for the future. Being able to lead people through a wide range of challenges successfully, with ideas and advice which develops leaders skillsets.  

Mentors with Diverse Backgrounds Add Most Value To Mentees

The most effective mentoring is delivered by experienced mentors who faced diverse range of workplaces.  Diversity of skills and experiences in mentoring is another important consideration in when selecting a mentor. If the mentor has only ever worked in one field, then their width of experience maybe limited to a certain sector and set off scenarios. This lack of diversity in experience of dealing with different workplace cultures, business sectors or people is often a reason why mentoring does not deliver.  Being relevant to different sectors, differing workplace cultures and to growth & development stages is where mentors can add the most value.  

Successful mentors need to have experience of these key diversity issues if they are to be able to add value in mentoring leaders.  Diverse business backgrounds is important if you want t understand 

Having successfully mentored leaders for over twenty years Richard Gourlay enables leaders to grow their skills and their business.  

Richard provides mentoring support packages which create confident, focused and motivated directors, leaders and senior people in organisations both large and small. Contact me here to learn more about mentoring packages: leadership mentoring.

Like to discuss your mentoring requirements then click here to contact Richard Gourlay click link here

 

A Mentoring Culture is Good Leadership

Mentoring other people is a great leadership skill to develop. Creating a mentoring culture within your workplace is an excellent way to develop a positive supportive team culture.  Mentoring brings out the best in you, in leading your people and in developing a supportive motivated and confident organisation.

One additional significant positive outcome from mentoring is often a cascade effect where mentored leaders recognise that they are improving their leadership  skills and that this culture may work throughout the organisation, not just at the leadership team level. 

 

Supporting Business Leaders Succeed

 

[Growth mindset

Growth and Change is Painful but not as painful as not changing.

Mentoring the people you lead, generates confidence, inspires trust and fast-tracks team development.  It also gets leaders closer to the frontline of their business by breaking down vertical silo mentalities, which often exists within organisations.

For leaders, being prepared to mentor defines what sort of leader you want to be. Mentoring is at the heart of the most successful, respected and desired leadership styles. Richard Gourlay develops positive mentoring to support leaders deliver transformational leadership. Mentoring is also at the heart of servant leadership model which are often seen as the most effective mentoring cultures.   

 

Effective Leadership Development

Effective leadership development depends upon leaders being able to inspire employees. At the heart of motivating employees is effective communication.

Mentoring leaders requires supporting leaders develop their existing skills in what and how they communicate. To lead you must have someone to lead people towards, a set of goals you can effectively define and then communicate in a language which engages with your people and motivates them to deliver their roles successfully. Mentoring creates that space and time to review, plan and practice these skills.

 

Mentoring Creates an Open Engagement Culture Throughout The Organisation

Another key skill leaders need to develop within their people is an open engagement culture, where ideas are cultivated throughout the organisation.  Leaders do not have all the answers, but they should be able to ask the right questions!  Learning that you do not have to be able to answer every challenge immediately and that is is all right to not know (yet) is an important element in developing your self.

Creating an open engagement culture is where leaders encourage the whole team to positively openly discuss and work together, actively encouraging all employees to share ideas in a positive conversation.  

Mentoring creates and sustains better, stronger and more resilient teams.  For leaders looking to reduce the pressure on themselves mentoring is a vital skill for themselves and others within their organisation. Leaders reduce pressure on themselves and their fellow senior people and to get the best out of their people by creating a mentoring culture.  This seen as the most effective way to sustain a positive business culture.  

Mentoring cultures can reduce tension, friction and frustration by fostering an open, sharing and trusting culture.

 

Developing A Company Mentoring Culture

Creating and fostering a mentoring business culture starts with leaders recognising the importance and value of mentoring. This starts with leaders and those around them. Mentoring is not a ‘tell’ culture’ from the top.  It is a shared culture where everyone pulls together in shaping and forming a mentoring culture. 

The true value of mentoring requires a cultural approach to work.  A mentoring culture requires both mentee and mentor to work together to develop shared mentoring skills, as summarised below. Without the right mentoring environment then these skills will not support a sustainable mentoring culture. 

 

Shared Mentoring Skills Matrix Shows the relationships between mentee and mentor in skills development between the two, by Richard Gourlay. 

 

Mentoring Culture: Shared Mentoring Skills between Mentors and Mentees

The ABC Key Mentoring skills 

There are many ways to provide mentoring to leaders, some of those come from experience and understanding, some come from being a good listener, but above all these three the ABC of mentoring are consistently seen to be the basis of good mentoring. 

A: Be Open and Honest about what mentees want to learn

Non-one is perfect, no matter what past they have had or the job title they have today. Everyone needs to learn. So owning up to errors, failings or weaknesses is vital if a mentee is going to be mentored effectively.  Without that openness and honesty, a mentoring culture will not succeed.  

A mentoring culture requires the approach that we are all continuously learning. Even the most experienced and respected have had to tackle some unfamiliar tasks and they inevitably made mistakes.

For leaders being honest about mistakes reveals vulnerability. It makes them infinitely more human, approachable and a better leader. 

 
B. Be Genuinely Interested in your People

Getting to know team members on a personal level is vital as a mentor. Genuinely understanding people supports building stronger relationships with them.  Seeing them as a person also enables them to share openly what they want to achieve.

Being genuinely interested in your mentees supports leaders to understand who they are as a person. From identifying their strengths and weaknesses, how they interact across the organisation.

Being able to listen without interruption is at the front of mentor leadership skills. This active listening skill unlocks the value a mentor provides to mentees. Good thoughtful questions that drive to the root cause of key issues for the mentees, moves the mentee forward.   

Being interested mentees growth also requires the hardest skill for a leader; do not provide the answer, ask the right question which gets them to find the answer. It is the self-discovery which makes mentoring valuable. That’s why mentees must be genuinely interested in their people.

 

C. Mentoring Must Create Value

Mentoring cultures that support both mentors and mentees require both parties to value the process of mentoring. Positive mentoring cultures develop over time and enable organisations to pull together. That allows leaders to overcome hurdles which drive the organisation forward at a faster rate than other cultures. 

To support people leaders, need to create and sustain a learning culture. Where people learn and develop themselves. Resourcing people to learn rather than just do is central to a successful organisation.

Mentoring cultures need to be supported with people development planning. Supporting people with appropriate resources is central to a learning culture. From learning and development time, through to specific skills training programmes and mentoring development are essential that leaders provide to support that culture. 

Mentoring Supports People Development Planning

People development Planning provides an active development plan upon which mentors can support mentees. Identifying which areas to focus on first, building a clear rollout plan covering key mentee priorities, this develops clarity of purpose and progress against goals.  

 For leaders to create and develop a mentoring culture these are the core drivers of mentoring and creating a learning and development culture within your organisation.  

For leaders being able to think becomes more important as conceptual work, such as planning and thinking become more important skills than technical skills in senior roles.

Like to know about our mentoring programmes to support leaders, then to get in contact now to learn more, just complete the form below lets start the conversation

Mentoring by Richard Gourlay
Developing managers into Leaders

 

Shared Mentoring Skills Matrix Shows the relationships between mentee and mentor in skills development between the two, by Richard Gourlay. 

 

Mentoring Culture: Shared Mentoring Skills between Mentors and Mentees

The ABC Key Mentoring skills 

There are many ways to provide mentoring to leaders, some of those come from experience and understanding, some come from being a good listener, but above all these three the ABC of mentoring are consistently seen to be the basis of good mentoring. 

 

 
 
A: Be Open and Honest about what mentees want to learn

 

 

Non-one is perfect, no matter what past they have had or the job title they have today. Everyone needs to learn. So owning up to errors, failings or weaknesses is vital if a mentee is going to be mentored effectively.  Without that openness and honesty, a mentoring culture will not succeed.  

 

A mentoring culture requires the approach that we are all continuously learning. Even the most experienced and respected have had to tackle some unfamiliar tasks and they inevitably made mistakes.

 

For leaders being honest about mistakes reveals vulnerability. It makes them infinitely more human, approachable and a better leader. 

 
 
B. Be Genuinely Interested in your People

 

 

Getting to know team members on a personal level is vital as a mentor. Genuinely understanding people supports building stronger relationships with them.  Seeing them as a person also enables them to share openly what they want to achieve.

 

Being genuinely interested in your mentees supports leaders to understand who they are as a person. From identifying their strengths and weaknesses, how they interact across the organisation.

 

Being able to listen without interruption is at the front of mentor leadership skills. This active listening skill unlocks the value a mentor provides to mentees. Good thoughtful questions that drive to the root cause of key issues for the mentees, moves the mentee forward. 

 

 

Being interested mentees growth also requires the hardest skill for a leader; do not provide the answer, ask the right question which gets them to find the answer. It is the self-discovery which makes mentoring valuable. That’s why mentees must be genuinely interested in their people.

 
 

C. Mentoring Must Create Value

 

 

Mentoring cultures that support both mentors and mentees require both parties to value the process of mentoring. Positive mentoring cultures develop over time and enable organisations to pull together. That allows leaders to overcome hurdles which drive the organisation forward at a faster rate than other cultures. 

 

To support people leaders, need to create and sustain a learning culture. Where people learn and develop themselves. Resourcing people to learn rather than just do is central to a successful organisation.

 

Mentoring cultures need to be supported with people development planning. Supporting people with appropriate resources is central to a learning culture. From learning and development time, through to specific skills training programmes and mentoring development are essential that leaders provide to support that culture. 

 

Mentoring is all about the ABC’s, be honest, interested and create value for the director so that they understand the value that being mentored delivers to their role.  

 

 

Mentoring Supports People Development Planning

 

People development Planning provides an active development plan upon which mentors can support mentees. Identifying which areas to focus on first, building a clear rollout plan covering key mentee priorities, this develops clarity of purpose and progress against goals.  

 

For leaders to create and develop a mentoring culture these are the core drivers of mentoring and creating a learning and development culture within your organisation.  

 

For leaders being able to think becomes more important as conceptual work, such as planning and thinking become more important skills than technical skills in senior roles.

 

Like to know about our mentoring programmes to support leaders, then to get in contact now to learn more, just complete the form below lets start the conversation.

 

Mentoring Leaders for Success in Business

Mentoring Leaders For Success in Business

 

Mentoring leaders for success in business is essential for directors and owners in business today. Leadership is a lonely place, where leaders are expected to make critical decisions, motivate their people and ensure they plan for the future often with little support. Mentoring provides an external set of ears, eyes and thought process for senior people to openly discuss their challenges with. Mentoring support enables leaders to find and sustain their performance in their role and develop them. 

Why mentoring works for leaders by Richard Gourlay Mentoring leaders to success in business

 

Mentoring leaders by actively supporting leaders is the most effective ways to support existing and new leaders develop their leadership skills in the workplace.

 

What Successful Mentoring Looks Like

 

Successfully mentoring starts by creating a safe-space where leaders can share and discuss their challenges, openly and frankly. This is where a non-aligned, highly experienced mentor can provide an effective environment to support and develop leaders to achieve their full potential. Non-aligned mentoring provides an external sounding board which provides both diversity of opinion and external experience to build a robust mentoring experience.

 

Creating a mentoring space and time to think, reflect, plan and review progress as a leader with support and advice enabling someone to grow into their role.  Mentoring develops confidence & competence, by widening leaders thinking beyond the current operational issues to think strategically, lead effectively and succeed personally.  

 

Like to know more, then get in touch click this link.

 

 

In Leadership Mentoring Experience Matters

 

Mentoring Leaders by Richard Gourlay

 

Mentoring works best when the mentor can bring a wide range of experience, knowhow  and skills to support the mentee. Mentors with experience and diversity bring the most to the table in supporting leaders succeed. Experienced mentors challenge and support leaders to succeed. Mentors who been there themselves and lived through similar challenges across a range of business environments walk and support leaders through scenarios and solutions that leaders will face in their role.

 

Experienced mentors have the knowledge and understanding of how to support leaders effectively to build their skills for the future. Being able to lead people through a wide range of challenges successfully, with ideas and advice which develops leaders skillsets.  

 

Mentors with Diverse Backgrounds Add Most Value To Mentees

 

The most effective mentoring is delivered by experienced mentors who faced diverse range of workplaces.  Diversity of skills and experiences in mentoring is another important consideration in when selecting a mentor. If the mentor has only ever worked in one field, then their width of experience maybe limited to a certain sector and set off scenarios. This lack of diversity in experience of dealing with different workplace cultures, business sectors or people is often a reason why mentoring does not deliver.  Being relevant to different sectors, differing workplace cultures and to growth & development stages is where mentors can add the most value.  

 

Successful mentors need to have experience of these key diversity issues if they are to be able to add value in mentoring leaders.  Diverse business backgrounds is important if you want t understand 

 

Having successfully mentored leaders for over twenty years Richard Gourlay enables leaders to grow their skills and their business.  

 

Richard provides mentoring support packages which create confident, focused and motivated directors, leaders and senior people in organisations both large and small. Contact me here to learn more about mentoring packages: leadership mentoring.

 

Like to discuss your mentoring requirements then click here to contact Richard Gourlay click link here

 

A Mentoring Culture is Good Leadership

 

Mentoring other people is a great leadership skill to develop. Creating a mentoring culture within your workplace is an excellent way to develop a positive supportive team culture.  Mentoring brings out the best in you, in leading your people and in developing a supportive motivated and confident organisation.

 

One additional significant positive outcome from mentoring is often a cascade effect where mentored leaders recognise that they are improving their leadership  skills and that this culture may work throughout the organisation, not just at the leadership team level. 

 

Supporting Business Leaders Succeed

 

[Growth mindset

Growth and Change is Painful but not as painful as not changing.

 

Mentoring the people you lead, generates confidence, inspires trust and fast-tracks team development.  It also gets leaders closer to the frontline of their business by breaking down vertical silo mentalities, which often exists within organisations.

 

For leaders, being prepared to mentor defines what sort of leader you want to be. Mentoring is at the heart of the most successful, respected and desired leadership styles. Richard Gourlay develops positive mentoring to support leaders deliver transformational leadership. Mentoring is also at the heart of servant leadership model which are often seen as the most effective mentoring cultures.   

 

 

Effective Leadership Development

 

Effective leadership development depends upon leaders being able to inspire employees. At the heart of motivating employees is effective communication.

 

Mentoring leaders requires supporting leaders develop their existing skills in what and how they communicate. To lead you must have someone to lead people towards, a set of goals you can effectively define and then communicate in a language which engages with your people and motivates them to deliver their roles successfully. Mentoring creates that space and time to review, plan and practice these skills.

 

 

Mentoring Creates an Open Engagement Culture Throughout The Organisation

 

Another key skill leaders need to develop within their people is an open engagement culture, where ideas are cultivated throughout the organisation.  Leaders do not have all the answers, but they should be able to ask the right questions!  Learning that you do not have to be able to answer every challenge immediately and that is is all right to not know (yet) is an important element in developing your self.

 

Creating an open engagement culture is where leaders encourage the whole team to positively openly discuss and work together, actively encouraging all employees to share ideas in a positive conversation.  

 

Mentoring creates and sustains better, stronger and more resilient teams.  For leaders looking to reduce the pressure on themselves mentoring is a vital skill for themselves and others within their organisation. Leaders reduce pressure on themselves and their fellow senior people and to get the best out of their people by creating a mentoring culture.  This seen as the most effective way to sustain a positive business culture.  

 

Mentoring cultures can reduce tension, friction and frustration by fostering an open, sharing and trusting culture.

 

 

Developing A Company Mentoring Culture

 

Creating and fostering a mentoring business culture starts with leaders recognising the importance and value of mentoring. This starts with leaders and those around them. Mentoring is not a ‘tell’ culture’ from the top.  It is a shared culture where everyone pulls together in shaping and forming a mentoring culture. 

 

The true value of mentoring requires a cultural approach to work.  A mentoring culture requires both mentee and mentor to work together to develop shared mentoring skills, as summarised below. Without the right mentoring environment then these skills will not support a sustainable mentoring culture. 

 

Shared Mentoring Skills Matrix Shows the relationships between mentee and mentor in skills development between the two, by Richard Gourlay. 

 

Mentoring Culture: Shared Mentoring Skills between Mentors and Mentees

The ABC Key Mentoring skills 

There are many ways to provide mentoring to leaders, some of those come from experience and understanding, some come from being a good listener, but above all these three the ABC of mentoring are consistently seen to be the basis of good mentoring. 

 

 
 
A: Be Open and Honest about what mentees want to learn

 

 

Non-one is perfect, no matter what past they have had or the job title they have today. Everyone needs to learn. So owning up to errors, failings or weaknesses is vital if a mentee is going to be mentored effectively.  Without that openness and honesty, a mentoring culture will not succeed.  

 

A mentoring culture requires the approach that we are all continuously learning. Even the most experienced and respected have had to tackle some unfamiliar tasks and they inevitably made mistakes.

 

For leaders being honest about mistakes reveals vulnerability. It makes them infinitely more human, approachable and a better leader. 

 
 
B. Be Genuinely Interested in your People

 

 

Getting to know team members on a personal level is vital as a mentor. Genuinely understanding people supports building stronger relationships with them.  Seeing them as a person also enables them to share openly what they want to achieve.

 

Being genuinely interested in your mentees supports leaders to understand who they are as a person. From identifying their strengths and weaknesses, how they interact across the organisation.

 

Being able to listen without interruption is at the front of mentor leadership skills. This active listening skill unlocks the value a mentor provides to mentees. Good thoughtful questions that drive to the root cause of key issues for the mentees, moves the mentee forward. 

 

 

Being interested mentees growth also requires the hardest skill for a leader; do not provide the answer, ask the right question which gets them to find the answer. It is the self-discovery which makes mentoring valuable. That’s why mentees must be genuinely interested in their people.

 
 

C. Mentoring Must Create Value

 

 

Mentoring cultures that support both mentors and mentees require both parties to value the process of mentoring. Positive mentoring cultures develop over time and enable organisations to pull together. That allows leaders to overcome hurdles which drive the organisation forward at a faster rate than other cultures. 

 

To support people leaders, need to create and sustain a learning culture. Where people learn and develop themselves. Resourcing people to learn rather than just do is central to a successful organisation.

 

Mentoring cultures need to be supported with people development planning. Supporting people with appropriate resources is central to a learning culture. From learning and development time, through to specific skills training programmes and mentoring development are essential that leaders provide to support that culture. 

 

Mentoring is all about the ABC’s, be honest, interested and create value for the director so that they understand the value that being mentored delivers to their role.  

 

 

Mentoring Supports People Development Planning

 

People development Planning provides an active development plan upon which mentors can support mentees. Identifying which areas to focus on first, building a clear rollout plan covering key mentee priorities, this develops clarity of purpose and progress against goals.  

 

For leaders to create and develop a mentoring culture these are the core drivers of mentoring and creating a learning and development culture within your organisation.  

 

For leaders being able to think becomes more important as conceptual work, such as planning and thinking become more important skills than technical skills in senior roles.

 

Like to know about our mentoring programmes to support leaders, then to get in contact now to learn more, just complete the form below lets start the conversation.

 

Mentoring by Richard Gourlay
Developing managers into Leaders

Mentoring Leaders For Success

Mentoring leaders for success is essential in business today. Leadership is a lonely place, where leaders are expected to make critical decisions, motivate their people and ensure they plan for the future often with little support. Mentoring provides an external set of ears, eyes and thought process for senior people to openly discuss their challenges with. Mentoring support enables leaders to find and sustain their performance in their role and develop them. 

Why mentoring works for leaders by Richard Gourlay Mentoring leaders to success in business

 Mentoring leaders by actively supporting leaders is the most effective ways to support existing and new leaders develop their leadership skills in the workplace.

What Successful Mentoring Looks Like

Successfully mentoring starts by creating a safe-space where leaders can share and discuss their challenges, openly and frankly. This is where a non-aligned, highly experienced mentor can provide an effective environment to support and develop leaders to achieve their full potential. Non-aligned mentoring provides an external sounding board which provides both diversity of opinion and external experience to build a robust mentoring experience.

Creating a mentoring space and time to think, reflect, plan and review progress as a leader with support and advice enabling someone to grow into their role.  Mentoring develops confidence & competence, by widening leaders thinking beyond the current operational issues to think strategically, lead effectively and succeed personally.  

Like to know more, then get in touch click this link.

 

 

In Leadership Mentoring Experience Matters

Mentoring Leaders by Richard Gourlay

Mentoring works best when the mentor can bring a wide range of experience, knowhow  and skills to support the mentee. Mentors with experience and diversity bring the most to the table in supporting leaders succeed. Experienced mentors challenge and support leaders to succeed. Mentors who been there themselves and lived through similar challenges across a range of business environments walk and support leaders through scenarios and solutions that leaders will face in their role.

Experienced mentors have the knowledge and understanding of how to support leaders effectively to build their skills for the future. Being able to lead people through a wide range of challenges successfully, with ideas and advice which develops leaders skillsets.  

Mentors with Diverse Backgrounds Add Most Value To Mentees

The most effective mentoring is delivered by experienced mentors who faced diverse range of workplaces.  Diversity of skills and experiences in mentoring is another important consideration in when selecting a mentor. If the mentor has only ever worked in one field, then their width of experience maybe limited to a certain sector and set off scenarios. This lack of diversity in experience of dealing with different workplace cultures, business sectors or people is often a reason why mentoring does not deliver.  Being relevant to different sectors, differing workplace cultures and to growth & development stages is where mentors can add the most value.  

Successful mentors need to have experience of these key diversity issues if they are to be able to add value in mentoring leaders.  Diverse business backgrounds is important if you want t understand 

Having successfully mentored leaders for over twenty years Richard Gourlay enables leaders to grow their skills and their business.  

Richard provides mentoring support packages which create confident, focused and motivated directors, leaders and senior people in organisations both large and small. Contact me here to learn more about mentoring packages: leadership mentoring.

Like to discuss your mentoring requirements then click here to contact Richard Gourlay click link here

 

A Mentoring Culture is Good Leadership

Mentoring other people is a great leadership skill to develop. Creating a mentoring culture within your workplace is an excellent way to develop a positive supportive team culture.  Mentoring brings out the best in you, in leading your people and in developing a supportive motivated and confident organisation.

One additional significant positive outcome from mentoring is often a cascade effect where mentored leaders recognise that they are improving their leadership  skills and that this culture may work throughout the organisation, not just at the leadership team level. 

 

Supporting Business Leaders Succeed

 

[Growth mindset

Growth and Change is Painful but not as painful as not changing.

Mentoring the people you lead, generates confidence, inspires trust and fast-tracks team development.  It also gets leaders closer to the frontline of their business by breaking down vertical silo mentalities, which often exists within organisations.

For leaders, being prepared to mentor defines what sort of leader you want to be. Mentoring is at the heart of the most successful, respected and desired leadership styles. Richard Gourlay develops positive mentoring to support leaders deliver transformational leadership. Mentoring is also at the heart of servant leadership model which are often seen as the most effective mentoring cultures.   

 

Effective Leadership Development

Effective leadership development depends upon leaders being able to inspire employees. At the heart of motivating employees is effective communication.

Mentoring leaders requires supporting leaders develop their existing skills in what and how they communicate. To lead you must have someone to lead people towards, a set of goals you can effectively define and then communicate in a language which engages with your people and motivates them to deliver their roles successfully. Mentoring creates that space and time to review, plan and practice these skills.

 

Mentoring Creates an Open Engagement Culture Throughout The Organisation

Another key skill leaders need to develop within their people is an open engagement culture, where ideas are cultivated throughout the organisation.  Leaders do not have all the answers, but they should be able to ask the right questions!  Learning that you do not have to be able to answer every challenge immediately and that is is all right to not know (yet) is an important element in developing your self.

Creating an open engagement culture is where leaders encourage the whole team to positively openly discuss and work together, actively encouraging all employees to share ideas in a positive conversation.  

Mentoring creates and sustains better, stronger and more resilient teams.  For leaders looking to reduce the pressure on themselves mentoring is a vital skill for themselves and others within their organisation. Leaders reduce pressure on themselves and their fellow senior people and to get the best out of their people by creating a mentoring culture.  This seen as the most effective way to sustain a positive business culture.  

Mentoring cultures can reduce tension, friction and frustration by fostering an open, sharing and trusting culture.

 

Developing A Company Mentoring Culture

Creating and fostering a mentoring business culture starts with leaders recognising the importance and value of mentoring. This starts with leaders and those around them. Mentoring is not a ‘tell’ culture’ from the top.  It is a shared culture where everyone pulls together in shaping and forming a mentoring culture. 

The true value of mentoring requires a cultural approach to work.  A mentoring culture requires both mentee and mentor to work together to develop shared mentoring skills, as summarised below. Without the right mentoring environment then these skills will not support a sustainable mentoring culture. 

 

Shared Mentoring Skills Matrix Shows the relationships between mentee and mentor in skills development between the two, by Richard Gourlay. 

 

Mentoring Culture: Shared Mentoring Skills between Mentors and Mentees

The ABC Key Mentoring skills 

There are many ways to provide mentoring to leaders, some of those come from experience and understanding, some come from being a good listener, but above all these three the ABC of mentoring are consistently seen to be the basis of good mentoring. 

A: Be Open and Honest about what mentees want to learn

Non-one is perfect, no matter what past they have had or the job title they have today. Everyone needs to learn. So owning up to errors, failings or weaknesses is vital if a mentee is going to be mentored effectively.  Without that openness and honesty, a mentoring culture will not succeed.  

A mentoring culture requires the approach that we are all continuously learning. Even the most experienced and respected have had to tackle some unfamiliar tasks and they inevitably made mistakes.

For leaders being honest about mistakes reveals vulnerability. It makes them infinitely more human, approachable and a better leader. 

 
B. Be Genuinely Interested in your People

Getting to know team members on a personal level is vital as a mentor. Genuinely understanding people supports building stronger relationships with them.  Seeing them as a person also enables them to share openly what they want to achieve.

Being genuinely interested in your mentees supports leaders to understand who they are as a person. From identifying their strengths and weaknesses, how they interact across the organisation.

Being able to listen without interruption is at the front of mentor leadership skills. This active listening skill unlocks the value a mentor provides to mentees. Good thoughtful questions that drive to the root cause of key issues for the mentees, moves the mentee forward.   

Being interested mentees growth also requires the hardest skill for a leader; do not provide the answer, ask the right question which gets them to find the answer. It is the self-discovery which makes mentoring valuable. That’s why mentees must be genuinely interested in their people.

 

C. Mentoring Must Create Value

Mentoring cultures that support both mentors and mentees require both parties to value the process of mentoring. Positive mentoring cultures develop over time and enable organisations to pull together. That allows leaders to overcome hurdles which drive the organisation forward at a faster rate than other cultures. 

To support people leaders, need to create and sustain a learning culture. Where people learn and develop themselves. Resourcing people to learn rather than just do is central to a successful organisation.

Mentoring cultures need to be supported with people development planning. Supporting people with appropriate resources is central to a learning culture. From learning and development time, through to specific skills training programmes and mentoring development are essential that leaders provide to support that culture. 

Mentoring Supports People Development Planning

People development Planning provides an active development plan upon which mentors can support mentees. Identifying which areas to focus on first, building a clear rollout plan covering key mentee priorities, this develops clarity of purpose and progress against goals.  

 For leaders to create and develop a mentoring culture these are the core drivers of mentoring and creating a learning and development culture within your organisation.  

For leaders being able to think becomes more important as conceptual work, such as planning and thinking become more important skills than technical skills in senior roles.

Like to know about our mentoring programmes to support leaders, then to get in contact now to learn more, just complete the form below lets start the conversation

Mentoring by Richard Gourlay
Developing managers into Leaders
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