As a manager one of your roles is to coach and mentor your staff.
Well it should be anyhow!
Good mentors are able to embrace and develope four main skills.
Without these skills you will not be able to communicate with or aid in the enhancement of anyone’s development.
And these skills are:
* Observation Skills
These are important because you must be able to see and understand what the person you are mentoring is currently doing and/or is capable of.
* Analytical Skills
These will give you the tools you need in order to determine where the person you are working with is falling short and what changes may need to be made.
* Questioning and Active Listening Skills
These are essential. When mentoring, you don’t feed the person you are working with a set of detailed instructions or are telling them what to do.
Instead, you’re probing and asking them questions so they come to the conclusions themselves. You’re not a teacher, you’re a guide. A lot of mentors are actually good at asking the questions but never listen to the answers.
This is a really key skill.
* Feedback Skills
These are incredibly important as well. You must be able to give honest feedback in the form of constructive comments. Negative feedback isn’t appropriate in most mentoring situations. You must be able to provide feedback on the actions and behaviours of your staff member without making them feel as though they have failed.
Have you taken the time to develop these mentoring skills?
If not, get to it!
