The term “mentor” derives from the Greek language. Mentor was the friend and counselor of the Greek adventurer Odysseus. In the business world of today, the term is used to describe a trusted and experienced counselor.
Executive mentoring is a specialized form of management assistance which creates a program individually designed to stimulate, increase and sustain a higher level of performance. A mentor helps to fill the voids in the executive’s background.
A mentored executive learns how to keep an open mind, while solving problems.
Mentoring deals with the management of change, “change management”, leading and making the change, learning how to be kind to one’s self and others during the transition by providing focus and support. The process of formulating the new corporate vision, defining its goals, setting the strategy, tactics, projecting the corporate identity and fostering the corporate culture.
The mentor’s role is to inspire the executive to increase his/her self-awareness and to motivate them to exercise their will.
Internal vs External Mentoring
The term mentoring has been used to describe a range of working relationships which can be narrowed to internal and external mentoring.
The internal mentoring process is suited to develop the executive’s performance within the existing accepted culture, based upon existing values and norms, while providing an outsider perspective.
The external mentoring process is designed to support the changes made necessary by a new vision, goal and strategy, by supporting the executive in improving his/her performance by providing experience, focus and outside perspective.
The common denominator in these relationships is the intervention of the outsider whose function, once a course of action has been agreed upon, is to keep the executive positive and focused. During this process, the mentor highlights points that cause management dissipation of efforts.
Mentoring improves upon the executive’s ability to listen to dialogue, enhance confidence, while reinforcing courage in the decision making process.
Valuable guidelines are provided to safeguard ethical behavior, credibility and integrity, leading to stronger leadership, which is paramount for success.
Mentoring spans all aspects of the business realm and covers all disciplines and situations which crop up in the business environment, particularly issues which keep an executive awake at night.
Interactivity – The Key To YOUR Success
Later-on in the mentoring process, it is the interactivity with the mentor on tactics implementation which is most valuable. Equally important to helping the executive develop a strategy is to help design the tactics that implement the strategy.
In today’s fast-changing business environment, executives find themselves under tremendous pressure to continuously optimize their performance. Demands on executives in the business world require them to continuously reinvent themselves to stay on top.
There are higher stakes for reward and failure. In order to stay on top, the executive must work harder and concentrate on the long-term issues as well as the day-to-day activities. To be successful at it, behavioral changes are required.
At such time, the mentor counsels the executive to keep an eye on the ball, while they hold the tension between the current reality and the new vision, developing strength and minimizing weaknesses, leading to performance enhancement.
The mentoring process assists in reaching ambitious goals faster and more effectively by focusing and staying on track