MENTORING AND EXECUTIVE COACHING
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:
- Many of Ann’s clients want to change careers and mentoring can help them to set goals and to plan their lives and careers. Several of them have been helped, through mentoring, to leave their organizations or jobs for better and more challenging opportunities elsewhere.
- People who are in senior roles or are newly promoted to senior positions often want help with developing effective leadership skills. This can also mean managing personal and organizational change. One of Ann’s current clients has valued the opportunity to take time out to assess their leadership style in introducing a major change programme, and to identify where it is helping them to achieve their goals and where it is getting in the way of this.
- Many senior managers 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 manipulation of others.
- Organizational cultures can promote aggressive and manipulative behaviour, both of which are very difficult to handle. If you are on the receiving end of such behaviour, mentoring can be used to provide support and to help you to handle difficult and challenging behaviour in others more effectively. One client has successfully handled the bullying behaviour of his boss for over two years as a result of the mentoring and has been able to sustain his self esteem in the face of this unacceptable behaviour.
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 a particular aspect of their life or work, 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 the client undertaking a psychometric test such as the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, to provide a platform from which to work.
