Category: Influence

You Can Be a World Class Mentor

Almost 25 years ago, I was assigned an employee to mentor for the very first time. I had no idea how to mentor someone, but proud and excited to be asked. I was also scared. Mentoring is not a skill that was taught in any class I took. I never received training. I was just expected to know how.

I scheduled the first meeting with my new mentee with no agenda. We were just going to meet each other and talk. My plan as a mentor was to share experiences and give advice. That is what a mentor does, right?

After the first meeting I became discouraged. I felt inadequate and worthless. I had no sense of the direction to lead my mentee. I was not sure how I could help this person.

We continued to meet, but the meetings were not productive. I struggled adding future meetings to my calendar because I had more important things to do. Activities in which I provided more value to the company than mentoring. After a few months we just stopped meeting. I had failed with my first mentee.

I am glad that over the next 25 years, I was able to develop world class mentoring skills. It would never have happened if I had not failed first. People that avoid failure, risk never experiencing the event that will positively change their life forever.

For some time, I avoided mentoring, but soon I was assigned another mentee. The second experience was better, but ultimately a failure. In fact, I continued to fail several more times. I learned from my mistakes. I sought out training. I learned more by doing than from books. I had to be willing to face my mistakes, and do the work required to improve.

Being a great mentor is not easy. There is not one single skill that automatically makes a good mentor. Good mentors have a long list of skills including listening, teaching, training, guiding, storytelling, coaching, and most importantly human personalities and motivations.

You can be a world class mentor. It requires life skills that grow through experience, failure, improvement, and practice. What lessons have you learned making you a better mentor? Have you learned more from a book, or by practice? What are you learning now, that will make you a better mentor?

 

Poor Leadership?

As you have probably seen, this week a man was forcefully removed from a United Airlines flight that was overbooked. The video went viral, and people were outraged. They should have been.

According to the Department of Transportation 46,000 passengers were involuntarily bumped from their scheduled flight in 2015. It is an every day occurrence in the industry.

So why the outrage? Normally an airlines offers an incentive for people to delay their departure to a future flight. In this case United claims to have offered an $800 voucher, but had no volunteers. They decided to randomly select four people to remove from the flight. But they also revealed later that they needed the seats for their employees.

This is a prime example of poor leadership. Employees followed procedures blindly without regard to the consequences. This is not how empowered employees would have acted.

There are a multitude of ways that United could have resolved the issue without violence. It is the company culture that allowed this situation to escalate to this level.

Strong leadership would create a work environment that was built on values, that support the procedures in place. Strong leadership would encourage employees to solve problems and make tactical decisions based on the current situation. Procedures can rarely cover all situations that would arise in a work place. Strong leadership would want employees that know how to successfully resolve issues.

When we ask employees to blindly follow procedures, we remove all personal responsibility from those employees.

United’s actions reflect their lack of respect for their customers. This is poor leadership from the top that has permeated their organization. We can only wonder what company values really drive their actions and their procedures. If we knew, we would probably stop using their services.

Build a High Performance Team You Can Be Proud Of

All high performing teams have a trait in common. Team members are willing to put team goals before individual goals. The team members work together for the good of the team. You can see this attitude reflected in very diverse high performing teams from an army unit, a research team, and even a community social group.

This cohesion rarely happens without effort. As a team leader, getting team members to look past their own goals needs to be a top priority.

A leader can start the process by developing and communicating a shared vision for the team. But to be effective, here are the requirements for success.

1. Connect emotionally. Your team members need to know you truly care about them. It is easy to connect on the highs, but you must also connect at the lows.
2. Connect intellectually. Challenge them. Teach them. Listen to them.
3. Resolve conflicts quickly and effectively. Conflicts can spiral out of control if not addressed immediately. Understand individual views but build cohesive views.
4. Support the individual but align effort in favor of the team. Recognize individual efforts individually, recognize and reward team accomplishments in the team environment.

In my career I have led many teams. Some effective, and some very ineffective. I have learned that when I did not take the time to work through these steps with individual team members, as well as with the complete team, I was heading towards failure. Regardless of how busy you are, if you want a high performing team, you must commit your time and effort to lead.

Competency Is Not Enough

Being competent is not enough. If you want to stretch yourself to reach your potential, go beyond proficiency.

People need to trust you before they care about you being capable. When you hire someone to do repairs at your house or on your car, you care that they are qualified. But you are most concerned that they are trustworthy. Character is more important than skill.

Here are three ways we can build our character.

Integrity – We can improve our integrity by being honest. There is no need to exaggerate or omit facts. People appreciate the truth even when they don’t like the truth. Building integrity is a life long pursuit.

Authenticity – Being authentic is simply being yourself in all situations. If you want to be authentic, work on being the person you desire to be. Learn to be comfortable with yourself no matter the circumstances. Authenticity will overcome office politics.

Discipline – Develop the discipline to live your values, and daily habits. Follow your plan every day.  Know that every day means every day.

Although these seem simple, I have found that most people enjoy growing their skill more than growing themselves. Success is not just about competency, it is about being a person that attracts success.