It is leaders who drive the organisational agenda. For any organisation to perform at the highest level, it needs well equipped leaders. It is well trained and competent leaders who bring prosperity.
When leadership is defined as influence it means that the leader has the necessary proficiencies that will actualise its vision, mission and core values. Leadership is therefore a cluster of competencies like communication, decision-making, emotional intelligence, strategic thinking, problem-solving, adaptability, delegation, charisma, conflict resolution, team building capabilities, time management and much more.
Transformative leaders cause success through learning and development activities. Success is critical to any organisation because of the cutthroat competition.
It is through deliberate learning and development initiatives that organisations become solid and sustainable. We are frequently exhorted that change is the most permanent occurrence hence the acquisition of new insights and perspectives. This is where mentoring and coaching come in handy.
Leaders should be mentors by default. The Cambridge dictionary has defined “mentorship as the act or process of helping and giving advice to a younger or less experienced person, especially in a job or at school". This is where a more experienced professional forms a strategic partnership with a mentee who seeks to excel in areas that they have gaps.
It therefore means that the mentor shares their knowledge, experiences, understanding, insights, perspectives for the mentee to perform outstandingly well in their space. Mentoring can go on for a very long time. Mentoring has a laser focus on skills and transfer, personal growth mindset, confidence architecture, succession management, relationship building and career advancement.
Sir John Whitmore, who is well accepted as the father of modern-day coaching industry told us that, “Coaching is unlocking people's potential to maximise their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them." Whitmore went to elucidate that coaching focuses on future possibilities, not past mistakes.
For coaching to succeed, it is an imperative that leaders get trained in its models.
The most universally used and easy to remember is GROW. GROW means Goals, Reality, Options or Obstacles and Will or way forward. It will also be noticeable that in coaching powerful questions are asked in order to challenge preexisting assumptions or limitations in thinking. Coaching is mostly short term.
Coaching and mentoring rely on various infrastructures to harvest the intended fruits. For leaders who are developing others they need dexterities like active listening, empathy, communication, feedback, questioning, guidance, accountability, encouragement, observation, reflection, support, clarity, rapport-building, flexibility goal-setting, patience, trust-building, problem-solving and motivation.
Why should leaders use mentorship and coaching in making organisations phenomenal? My thinking first is that organisations ought to be deliberate about establishing such learning and development methods through policies, budgeting, time, processes and procedures so that it isn’t optional.
This goes into making a well ingrained culture. The benefits of coaching and mentoring are from here to the furthest planet. They include skill development, increased confidence, enhanced self-awareness, career advancement, knowledge transfer, improved performance, better decision-making, greater job satisfaction, strengthened relationships and effective problem-solving.
