INDIANAPOLIS BUSINESS
JOURNAL
Small
Biz
JAN. 28, 2008
Leadership
Everyone benefits if you take time to mentor employees
By CJ McClanahan
If you are reading this column, I am going to assume you believe that improving your ability to influence others in the upcoming year will help you to achieve your 2008 goals.
If that’s the case, I’ve got good news for you—you’re right. Unless you are self-employed and don’t plan on leveraging the talents of others this year, leadership is the single most important skill you can develop.
Before I discuss becoming a better leader in 2008, I’d like you to reflect on the past and consider the following question: Did you have a mentor that made a significant difference in your life?
If you’re like most people, you will list the names of a handful of individuals who helped you to become the person you are today. It may have been a coach, a teacher, a parent or even a close friend. Each of these individuals had a handful of characteristics that made them uniquely qualified to help you understand your potential—and then reach it.
For me, many names come to mind, but one really stands out. His name is Ron Wise, and he taught a somewhat arrogant young kid how to run the finances for a manufacturing company exploding with growth.
Ron patiently helped me to develop confidence and a set of valuable skills that provided me with the foundation to build my own business. His guidance made (and continues to make) an enormous difference in my professional success.
So, what does this trip down memory lane have to do with becoming a better leader in 2008? To answer this question, let me first point out that, when I ask my clients, prospects and friends to list their mentor(s) I almost never hear the name of their boss, manager, supervisor or co-worker.
Why is that? There are many reasons—people change jobs more often, the information-age worker requires less “handson” supervision, etc. However, I would argue that the most significant reason we identify fewer mentors in the workplace is that seldom do leaders take the time to really invest in the professional development of their subordinates.
Today’s leaders are managing activity and circumstances instead of building people. These individuals (it may be you and it has certainly been me at times) allocate their time based upon which activities yield the quickest results. Because they don’t see an immediate outcome from mentoring a staff member, this effort gets put on the back burner.
At this point, many of you are thinking, “Who cares? As long as I get the job done, why should I worry about serving as a mentor to my staff?” Other than just being the right thing to do, there are two important benefits to investing in the development of your employees.
First off, focusing on the needs of someone other than yourself will help you to develop an important skill that most leaders lack—empathy. Your employees don’t care about your company, your success or your long-term goals until they first know that you care about them.
Empathy is more than allowing someone to come in late from time to time because they have a child-care issue. The type of empathetic leader I am describing is one who understands at a personal level what each member of the team wants to accomplish in their careers and why.
Second, this change in focus will help you increase the productivity of your staff. Your employees will work harder for someone who is as concerned with their development as they are with the bottom line. In addition, it is easier to hold an individual accountable when they recognize that meeting your expectations is directly related to achieving their individual goals. (By the way, if there isn’t a correlation between your expectations and their career goals, you’ve got the wrong person doing the job.)
Now, I understand that this sort of change in behavior will be a radical shift for many, so let me provide a few tips to get you started:
Sometime this week, schedule a meeting with each of your direct reports to review their professional goals. The best way to do this is to ask them to prepare an answer to the following question: “Imagine that it is January 2012, and your career has gone perfectly—how much do you earn and what are your job responsibilities?”
Next, summarize their answers and place them somewhere that you will review on a regular basis.
Finally, schedule a quarterly meeting with them to see if their goals have changed (and during the first follow-up meeting, they will have changed) and to review how their current position is preparing them to achieve these goals.
This year, strive to be a Ron Wise in someone’s professional journey. It will make a measurable difference in your business and their life.
CJ McClanahan is the president of ReachMore Strategies, a leadership training and management consulting firm. You can reach him at info@goreachmore.com or by calling 576-8492.
