We must internalize that we
don’t know everything and
keep ourselves in a position
to be taught and mentored by
those who have already “been
there…and …done that.”
Sharon Evans
CEO/Founder
Evans Helping Hands, LLC
www.evanshands.com
Serving the for-profit and nonprofit sectors
with Management and Human Services support for over 16 years.
Leadership
and Making the Decision to Work with a Mentor
How many of you had someone that you looked up to as
a kid? It does not matter who they are if they inspired you
to do better and be better. In leadership, we must fall back
to that same basic principle. Mentorship in leadership works
cohesively together in both for profit and nonprofit entities.
However, one must be very selective in
business with his or her choice of mentorship. This article will discuss the
importance of mentorship and a few
guidelines for mentor selection.
First, I will define mentorship, as
defined in Wikipedia. “Mentorship is
a personal developmental relationship
in which a more experienced or more
knowledgeable person helps guide a
less experienced or less knowledgeable
person. The mentor may be older or
younger, but have a certain area of expertise. It is a learning and development partnership between
someone with vast experience and someone who wants to
learn. “My father would always tell us, “If you are the smartest
one in the room, you are in the wrong room”. This is the premise of mentorship; when one person teaches, two people learn.
Leaders must also learn to be humble and teachable. We must
accept that we don’t know everything and keep ourselves in
a position to be taught and mentored by those who have already “been there…and …done that”.
It gives a tangible example that they
indeed “practice what they preach.” I
won’t listen to people who tell me it is
easy to make a million dollars and yet
they have not made it themselves. This
brings me to the selection of mentorship.
As I stated earlier in the article, we
must select mentors who offer tangible
evidence that the principles or business ethic they implement work towards the desired outcomes. Leaders that apply this concept
have better results simply by trusting the mentor based on his
or her present level of success. If I am opening an ice cream
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