Executive Coaching and Mentoring
What is mentoring?
Mentoring is a method of working with an individual on a one-to-one basis over a period of time. A recent study of the top one hundred Chief Executives in the UK, revealed that having a mentor was given by over 80% of them as one of the key factors in their success.
Why do people choose a mentor?
There are many reasons for choosing a mentor:
- Perhaps you want to change careers and mentoring can help you to set goals and to plan your life and career. Several of my clients have been helped, through mentoring, to leave their organizations for better and more challenging opportunities elsewhere or to gain promotion in their existing company.
- People who are in senior leadership roles or are newly promoted to senior positions often want help with developing effective leadership skills. This can also mean, for some. managing significant personal and organizational change.
- Many senior leaders and directors struggle with handling organizational politics and mentoring can be an invaluable process to enable them to develop survival strategies for working within their organization, without having to indulge in “political game-playing” or the manipulation of others.
- Impression management is a key political skill – learning how to maximize your strengths and develop your areas of weakness in order to make the best impression that you can so that you can influence more effectively, is a very popular topic with my mentoring clients.
Who benefits from mentoring?
Ann specializes in working as a mentor to chief executives and senior managers and directors in organizations. She also mentors a wide range of people who require specific help in particular aspects of their performance or development, for example in dealing with conflict or personal presentation.
What does mentoring involve?
A typical mentoring relationship would begin with a meeting, lasting for about one hour in which objectives are set; guidelines for working together, such as confidentiality, are agreed; and a series of meetings is planned. The length of a mentoring relationship can vary from about three months to several years. Each mentoring session lasts for between two and three hours and sessions are usually held four to six weeks apart.
The mentoring is normally face-to-face but telephone meetings can be arranged. The location can be on or off-site.
Mentoring sessions often begin with my clients undertaking a psychometric test such as the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, to provide a platform from which to work.
