In this week’s readings we have learned all about being
a coach and a mentor and the differences of each one. Being a leadership coach means working with a
person within your organization who can coach you on how to be a more effective
leader by communicating better, making objective decisions and influencing others
in a certain time frame which in turn the person can use in their job as a
leader. On the other side you have
leadership mentoring which can happen anywhere any time either professionally
or personally. We are being mentored or
are doing the mentoring to some degree in our lives with our kids, in the work
place, or with our significant others.
In my discussion I talked about my director being my
mentor and how he doesn’t even realize he is doing it. I watch how he interacts with others, be it
his boss, his subordinates, or other coworkers within the organization. His easy going personality and honesty make
him someone to observe. I try to put myself
in his shoes and think of how he would react to a situation. I have asked him before
how he does it. How does he remain calm? How does he approach a difficult
situation? Did his upbringing have
anything to do with the type of person he is today?
He said first and foremost he steps back and looks at
it from their side…what are they thinking?
How are they feeling about what the situation is (I have adapted this
approach as well)? He also said that he observed his brother and father growing
up and saw how they interacted with many different people and wanted to be like
that. This to me shows that when you see
people following the “golden rule” it instills that belief in you as well. When he speaks to you he is not talking down
to you he is sincerely interested in what you have to say and what your
thoughts are on a topic. I know that I
can ask him anything be it a question on financial aid or what the best plasma
TV is to buy to even how to make a better personal budget for myself.
He doesn’t give you the answer, he wants you to think
about it and come to your own conclusion and if it is wrong he will guide you
in the right direction without giving you the answer. The reason is by giving me the answer I will
not learn but if I think about it and figure out how to solve the problem I am
now being empowered to understand and increase my learning. This is like the saying “you can give a man a
fish and he will eat for a day but if you teach him how to fish he will eat for
a lifetime”.
This leads to me to how I am a mentor. I don’t realize (or didn’t until now) that
the teachings I am instilling in my daughter how to be a better person (be
kind, helpful, sincere, polite, studious) are aspects of mentoring. My goal is to get her to think critically about
life and how it works. That there is a
reason for everything no matter how big or small it may be. For example, she was grumpy one evening and
didn’t want to do her homework and complained about how unfair life was and how
hard it was. So I thought how do I make
her understand how easy she has it? I
told her to close her eyes. She asked
why but of course I asked that she just bear with me she would find out soon
enough. I then asked her to tell me what
she saw. She said only darkness. I said now imagine that is all you can see,
that is all you know. You can’t see the
sky, or colors or anything else other than that darkness. She said that she wouldn’t like that very
much. Then I asked her to try to reach
for her bottle of water with her eyes still closed. She did try but was way off and said as much.
Then I asked her if she still felt that life was unfair
and too hard to deal with. She said no
that she was very lucky to be able to see when many others cannot. Instead of just ignoring her whining and
letting her complain I wanted her to understand that things we may find easy or
that we take for granted are things that others don't. Like my director does for me by making me
think I did for her by making her think about her own statements.
I feel that you can learn many things from the people
around you (hopefully only the good things) and if there is someone who you
feel can help you become a better person, leader, etc. that you have to take
the opportunity to observe and ask questions of this person to sit down with
them face to face or chat with them via email or webcam. The learning experience will well be worth
it and you will become a better person and a better more effective leader for it.
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