Reverse mentoring is a practical and powerful way for senior professionals to learn from more junior colleagues. There are two primary contexts in which it’s applied: 1. Technical Reverse Mentoring This approach emerged in the 1990s to help senior executives keep pace with technological change, particularly in IT literacy. 2. Diversity-Focused Reverse Mentoring This type (more…)
Mentoring and coaching CEOs A (2018) article in Harvard Business Review proposes six dimensions that define how CEOs exert influence. All of these also seem highly relevant to other leaders – indeed to anyone, who has a large span of control and authority. For coaches and mentors, the dimensions provide a useful framework for reviewing (more…)
Having a helping hand in one’s career is usually beneficial. Boasting about your own achievements can easily backfire – it is far better, when someone else is promoting your cause for you! One option is to find a sponsor, but this comes with several drawbacks: An alternative, somewhere between mentor and sponsor, is to seek (more…)
Most managers will sign on intellectually to the need to coach others. But they also need to sign on emotionally. They have to feel that: Only when they have positive emotions to all four of these factors will managers commit to the coaching process so that it becomes part of their day to day routine, (more…)
The health sector has a long history of involvement with mentoring. The first supported mentoring programmes in Europe took place in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), aimed at supporting the integration and retention of young graduate recruits. The NHS and the Health sector continue to pioneer good practice. For example: The international medical charity (more…)
Systemic team coaching has two aspects. One is to help teams understand the multiple systems they are part of or occur within the team. The other is to help the team develop practical ways to manage, monitor and review those systems. Systems can be internal, external or boundary-crossing. Here are some examples of each. Internal (more…)
It makes mentoring a lot easier when the mentee knows exactly where they want to go in their career. The trouble is, many mentees – particularly those in the early stages of their careers – have only a general sense of direction (if that). They may see many different possibilities and may or may not (more…)
Great mentoring relationships are always ones where there is high potential for and willingness to co-learn. A basic guideline for finding the right mentoring partner for you is to look for someone who is sufficiently similar to you that you will be able to build and maintain rapport, but sufficiently different to provide a strong (more…)
Setting and pursuing goals is integral to modern management, offering structure and focus. However, as you’ve pointed out, over-focusing on goals can lead to significant drawbacks. Here’s a summary and reflection on the key points: Drawbacks of Over-Concentration on Goals: CEO Insights on Goal Setting: The Coach’s Role in Goal Setting: Factors Influencing Goal Progress: (more…)
The third sector, wherever it operates in the world, faces increasing challenges. Many of these can be met in part by having a well-designed, well-managed mentoring programme – or in some cases, multiple mentoring programmes. Some of these programmes are world-class – Medicins Sans Frontieres, for example, is one of the few holders of the (more…)