I was just in a discussion today about mentoring. What exactly does this mean and why is it important for leaders to have a mentorship mindset?Mentorship is about sharing wisdom, and wisdom is gained from knowledge and experience. One of my favorite books about mentorship is Mentoring: The Tao of Giving and Receiving Wisdom by Chungliang Al Huang and Jerry Lynch. Any good teacher will tell you that we learn so much from our students. The same is true with mentoring, it is an exchange, a dance of sharing wisdom, knowledge, and experiences with the intention of growth – for both parties.Of course, like most concepts we discuss, mentoring begins with self-reflection, self-awareness, and self-love. I love this quote from the book, “It may seem clever to know and accept others; yet accepting oneself is the way to Wisdom. It may feel powerful to overcome others; yet disciplining oneself is true strength. It may be noble to honor others; yet respecting oneself is deep self-esteem.”To practice mentoring, just remember the MENTOR acronym:Motivation – discover the motivation in yourself and your mentee.Exploration – encourage exploration of different perspectives, options, and opportunities.Notice the feelings in both parties and explore their presence.Talk less and listen more. Practice active listening and learn how to dance in the conversation.Open – be open to learn from your mentee and the experience.Respect – Always opt for respect without judgment.Recognizing the important distinction of when to lead, when to walk side-by-side, and when to follow -- and knowing the difference -- is wisdom.What are the elements of mentorship that resonate with you?I would love to hear from you. Who was your most significant mentor and why?With Love,Maria
WIIFM?
What’s in it for me? As an entrepreneur and leader of my own business, I often take this perspective of my clients when I write marketing copy and have client conversations. Framing thoughts this way helps me identify the benefits for clients and potential customers.
The funny thing about this thought, WIIFM is that it is not only on the minds of our customers, it is also on the minds of our team members and those we lead. While they may not directly ask, “What’s in it for me?” they are definitely thinking it!
If we can frame our leadership guidance and requests with the mindset of what’s in it for them, we can open up new ways to motivate our teams, clients and customers for more engagement, commitment, productivity, and loyalty; resulting in tremendous benefit to our companies and organizations.
Don’t wait for our teams and customers to fill in the blanks of what’s in it for them, just communicate to them up front the benefits and results they can expect from joining you or buying your product or service.
Don’t you just love win-win scenarios?
With love,
Maria
Dr. Maria Church, CPC, is a leadership coach, speaker, and author of Love-Based Leadership: Transform Your Life with Meaning and Abundance and her upcoming book, A Course in Leadership: 21 Spiritual Lessons on Leadership, Love, and Life. Maria holds a doctorate of management in organizational leadership, teaches at several universities, and is CEO of Dr. Maria Church International LLC, a leadership coaching, development, and training firm. For more information, visit www.DrMariaChurch.com.
Leading with Fear Works!
Many of us learned how to lead with fear…and it works…sort of. Leading with fear comes with a price.Using fear as a motivation technique is sometimes effective, but the key to understanding the use of fear is that this method is not sustainable. When leaders and managers leverage fear in the workplace, it is important for them to understand that while it may move people immediately in the direction in which they want to go, it also immediately erodes trust.Know that when employees are motivated and moved by fear, employee movement continues both literally and figuratively. Employees start planning their escape. Literally, they escape by leaving the organization. Oops, there goes another one. We know the expense of employee turnover.Even more significant are the employees who escape figuratively…read “employee disengagement”. Employees disengage when they distrust. When people check out, they are not motivated, productive, or loyal. Think of the cost to your organization with a team who has checked out.Fear is not sustaining; in fact, fear is debilitating to an organization.We need to recognize that fear is the go-to method for many leaders and managers -- we learned it, cultivated it, and thought we perfected it. I challenge you to reconsider this technique due to the long-term destructive ramifications. Get your creative juices flowing for more innovative, value-centered, and love-based approaches to influence others.What are more effective techniques you use to motivate your team? Please share your comments below.As always, I love hearing your ideas.With love,MariaDr. Maria Church, CPC, is a leadership coach, speaker, and author of Love-Based Leadership: Transform Your Life with Meaning and Abundance and her upcoming book, A Course in Leadership: 21 Spiritual Lessons on Leadership, Love, and Life. Maria holds a doctorate of management in organizational leadership, teaches at several universities, and is CEO of Dr. Maria Church International LLC, a leadership coaching, development, and training firm. For more information, visit www.DrMariaChurch.com.