Mentoring

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How to be a great Mentor

As a Mentor you will...

Designed for Yooralla by Jeanine Browne, LN Consulting Australia Pty Ltd, 2021 "Live your potential" and the LN Leadership Institute "Make a Difference". LN.C@bigpond.com

A SMART goal is carefully planned, clear and trackable.

Designed for Yooralla by Jeanine Browne, LN Consulting Australia Pty Ltd, 2021 "Live your potential" and the LN Leadership Institute "Make a Difference". LN.C@bigpond.com

Six principles to guide your approach to mentoring.

POSITIVITY Scientific research has advanced what is known about the influence of states of mind. Mentors will improve their own lives as well as those of their mentees by having a positive approach to mentoring and increasing positivity in mentoring conversations. Positivity is not simply affirmations, positive thinking, or feel good daydreams. Increasing heartfelt positive emotions such as joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe and love has been shown to transform people and help them to flourish.

COURAGE Mentoring offers the opportunity to open our minds, challenge our thinking, consider alternatives and make a choice. It invites us to step outside our comfort zone, change and grow. Mentoring presents a challenge for both mentor and mentee. Courage is how the challenge is met.

DIFFERENCE According to TED.com Noreena Hertz - "How to use experts and when not to"- it is only when we overcome our own discomfort and defensiveness and really hear a different perspective, that more intelligence resides in our decision making. Mentoring offers a space for acknowledging differences of opinion and expanding our world view to accommodate them, or respectfully disagree.

DIALOGUE Listening and questioning skills ensure real communication occurs rather than superficial talk. This involves being present, attentive and focused on understanding each other, not just waiting for your turn to talk or dominating the airtime with your words.

BEING CONSTRUCTIVE Mentors empower mentees to think about what is important and set goals around that. Mentors support achievement and actions that move their mentee towards outcomes. They ask the 3 vital mentor questions to do so: What's down the road for you if you follow this path? What's stopping you? Who can I introduce you to that may help? Mentors treat setbacks and mistakes as learning opportunities, a time for their mentees to reflect, reset and return to move forward towards their goals.

RESPONSIBILITY The paradox in mentoring is you can offer ideas and experience to inspire your mentee whilst encouraging them to come up with their own decisions and choices. If your mentee proposes a course of action that is dangerous you have a duty of care to help them become aware of possible consequences.

Designed for Yooralla by Jeanine Browne, LN Consulting Australia Pty Ltd, 2021 "Live your potential" and the LN Leadership Institute "Make a Difference". LN.C@bigpond.com

Leadership mindsets

A real-life scenario involving a passive leader: Sahiv was the manager of a team consisting of mostly new and inexperienced people. Sahiv had risen to this position on the strength of personality and ability to charm clients. Put bluntly, Sahiv “wowed” the company’s clients. Unfortunately, the same wasn’t true of Sahivs' team members. Although Sahiv had an impressive degree and considerable knowledge, Sahiv was vague about team goals and indecisive about objectives. Sahiv felt uncomfortable giving direct commands, and wouldn’t give explicit answers to questions, because Sahiv wanted to encourage people to use their own initiative. As a result, the team members were often confused about what they were supposed to be doing. They were looking for leadership and found none. Sahiv’s passive approach led to many missed deadlines and client complaints, which led to a decrease in clients. When they complained, Sahiv was replaced with a new team leader, Deborah. Deborah was accustomed to working with an inexperienced team. Deborah gave specific goals, communicated clearly, and made knowledge and experience readily available to everyone. Deborah quickly got the team back on target, and made everyone – clients, team and executives – happy again.

A real-life example of a Transformational Leader at work Ann is a popular and very approachable manager. Ann operates an open-door policy in the office, and can often be found consulting with individual members of the team on particular aspects of their role or on current projects before she makes a decision. Ann can be tough and demanding to work for, but enthusiasm and a clearly communicated vision inspires the team to give their all. Ann works hard and has high standards, and expects the same from the team. Sometimes Ann sets goals that seem overly ambitious, but Ann encourages the team to pursue professional development activities to give them the skills they need, and is always willing to help out when asked. Anns' team is the envy of peers: highly skilled, motivated and very capable. People often come to Ann with ideas which Ann helps them to further develop and implement .

What characteristics does Ann display as a Transformational Leader?

Designed for Yooralla by Jeanine Browne, LN Consulting Australia Pty Ltd, 2021 "Live your potential" and the LN Leadership Institute "Make a Difference". LN.C@bigpond.com

Transformational leadership

What do leaders with transformational mindsets value the most in team members? Select two

Designed for Yooralla by Jeanine Browne, LN Consulting Australia Pty Ltd, 2021 "Live your potential" and the LN Leadership Institute "Make a Difference". LN.C@bigpond.com

Transactional leadership

Designed for Yooralla by Jeanine Browne, LN Consulting Australia Pty Ltd, 2021 "Live your potential" and the LN Leadership Institute "Make a Difference". LN.C@bigpond.com

Getting the Most Out of Your Mentor

Which of these is false?

Designed for Yooralla by Jeanine Browne, LN Consulting Australia Pty Ltd, 2021 "Live your potential" and the LN Leadership Institute "Make a Difference". LN.C@bigpond.com

Developing & maintaining resilience

What happens to us in a crisis?

Survival thinking kicks in. The limbic part of the brain drives us to seek basic human needs - physiological and safety needs.

Automatic Negative Thoughts (A.N.T.S.) become our default thinking in a crisis - to assess risk, to protect us, to trigger us to take immediate action.

However - too many ANTS can trigger CATASTROPHE THINKING ** This is terrible** This is overwhelming This is never going to get better This is worse than I thought I can’t stand it anymore I feel like I can’t go on

Which of the following coping strategies will work best after a crisis or traumatic event at work?

Exercise with colleagues or friends - burns off the trauma stress, recharges the body and helps clear the mind.

Grounding Technique: Take your shoes off, feel your feet on the ground Count back from 20 Focus on the feeling and sensations of the ground Notice the sounds around you Feel safe and at peace with yourself and the ground

Make a List of actions you will do after an event, i.e. exercise, talk to my family, catch up with a friend. This helps remind us to stay focused on the important things in our life!

A healthy diet helps our energy and resilience level

Sleep is also important for reducing stress and rebuilding our resilience

The Content in this lesson was developed by LN Consulting Australia for Yooralla. All content is based on psychological research and proven methods for building resilience. The course was designed by registered psychologists.