Mentoring can be a difficult relationship to navigate for both mentors and mentees, but there are several steps that participants can take to ensure that they get the most out of the relationship. Finalists for Mentor Scout‘s Mentor of the Year award recently talked with Nobscot CEO Beth N. Carvin about some things to keep in mind when working on establishing a good mentoring relationship.
Mentoring is a two-way street
The mentor and the mentee each have responsibilities when it comes to building a good relationship. “My expectation is there is an open and trusting dialogue up front,” said UTC Aerospace Systems’ Samantha Stovall, recipient of the 2012 Mentor of the Year award. Stovall said she tried to set expectations up front and establish open communication right away with her mentee, Danielle Wilke. She said Wilke was expected to compile a list of her five- and 10-year goals, her strengths and weaknesses and professional issues she wanted to work on, while Stovall came up with exercises for Wilke to do and books for her to read. (read more…)
“Nothing is less important than which fork you use. Etiquette is the science of living. It embraces everything. It is ethics. It is honor.” ~ Emily Post, American expert on etiquette
Is there a proper “etiquette” for leaders to follow when developing their teams? I’ve often heard it said that etiquette is simply helping others to feel comfortable in unfamiliar surroundings. Taken in this context, there is a connection to career development and etiquette because leaders are well-positioned to help their followers navigate the uncertainty that often comes with a career transition.
So where does honor fit into the equation? As the mother of modern manners points out, rules aren’t the governing factor in the science of living — honor is. When leaders come from a place of honorable intention with career development, they are stewards of their followers’ careers in the best possible way. They aren’t squeezing somebody into a predefined mold because the company policy said that how it must be. (read more…)
You might be first-line supervision or midlevel in your organization, and you might also be a high-potential or high-performing leader. You are an accomplished person who’s worked your way to get where you are by using significant talents.
Yet, as gifted as you might be, sometimes you might feel powerless. The larger organization asks a lot of you. Expectations are high, and you must continually find a way to navigate the politics, bureaucracy and naysayers while staying strong and committed to your work.
Does this sound like you? If so, you might not be fully aware of the times that powerlessness grips you. Watch for these signs in your thoughts and words.
“There is nothing I (we) can do about it”: There is always something you can do, even if it means to consciously choose to not let something get under your skin. What choices can you personally make about how you’ll feel about a situation? (read more…)
If you’re in a senior leadership role in a large organization, there’s a good chance there is a succession plan for your position in case you get promoted, win the lottery, get hit by a bus, leave for another company or need to be replaced for poor performance.
In smart companies, an orderly replacement of high-level, critical positions is considered to be strategically important to the continued success of the company. A failure to proactively plan for succession is the same as failing to safeguard the financial assets of an organization.
Other than this handful of critical executive positions, succession planning for the rest of the organizations is usually managed by identifying “pools” of candidates that are considered to have potential to move into any number of senior leadership roles. In other words, the typical mid-senior-level leadership position isn’t considered important enough to worry about if the incumbent leaves. When it happens, the organization reaches into the pool for a replacement, hires externally, or re-shapes the position in a way so that it doesn’t look anything like it used to. (read more…)
This article is an adapted excerpt from “The Boom! Boom! Book: Practical tips to make sure your career doesn’t go bust!” (Ryan Media Consultants, 2013) by Michael Ryan. Ryan is president of Ryan Media Consultants and a retired vice president of The Arizona Republic, where he was general manager of the company’s 18 community Republics newspapers and their associated Web and mobile sites.
Here is some advice on things not to do if you want to succeed as a manager.
1. Here’s how we did it …
Picture this scenario: you’ve been a successful manager at one of your company’s properties. You’ve done so well that the company wants to promote you to a different location. You’re excited, eager for a new challenge, and accept the promotion. You hustle off to your new location and start work.
Want a sure-fire way to turn off your new employees? Just start telling them about how you used to handle situations at your former company. (read more…)
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