I want to share an article I found about mentoring. It starts off with an almost poetic approach where it likens mentoring to an art form. I like that.
It breaks down the skill of a mentor into perceptual affirmation and behavioural affirmation. It examines the inferences of mentoring between genders and the ‘dangers’ of cloning (in mentoring sense - not in a Barbara Streisand dog kind of way)
There are a few tips in there about active listening and I particularly like the phrase ‘listening generously’. It's quite an easy read and hopefully of interest to fellow L&Ders.
One thought I had though – is this mentoring or is this coaching?
Surely a mentor actually intends to clone – that being the limitation of the mentoring approach, whereas the coach looks to improve the coachee beyond the skills of the coach – or am I missing a point?
Click here to read the article on the Harvard Business Review website. Aplogies for the pop up on first click.
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