Each day, in most businesses, leaders are being asked to do more and more. With this increased workload and added responsibilities, an often-missed point is continuing to develop the core and critical leadership traits to sustain business success. While many organizations place a tremendous emphasis on employee growth and development, often the leader is left out of this process. Developing an effective marketing process is critical to an organization’s long-term survival. Successful leaders are on the front lines of change and transition. An effective mentoring process can equip leaders to seize their role in driving that change. CSI offers a simple process that would allow for this critical process to be realized.

Implementing a successful mentoring process
Let’s assume that we are discussing the establishment of this process in a manufacturing environment. In most plants, there is a plant manager and his/her staff. Typically, there are about ten managers on this team. We believe that this team, the primary team, should have the human resources department compile and distribute a list of names of the next level management – typically supervisors. For discussion purposes, let’s assume their total number of people in this group is 20. We believe that the primary team should evenly distribute these names to each of the managers. This could give each manager two people with who they are to mentor. This will allow for frequent one-on-one dialog and contact. This approach also creates a small mentoring team which allows for collaboration and group learning.

Once the mentoring teams are established, CSI recommends the following process:
Step 1: Manager meets with each member individually
• Compile an information sheet on each mentor candidate to understand who they are, where they are and most importantly, where they want to go.
• Manager and candidate establish a routine meeting frequency which would include:
o Breakfast or lunch meetings
o Frequent phone calls
o Monthly status meetings
o Annual 360’ feedback processes

Step 2: Manager establishes a process for his Mentoring Team discuss needs and next steps. Potential actions the manager could take:
• Create a monthly book club to read and discuss latest business trends and philosophies
• Identify a local educational opportunity for the team to attend and then debrief on the applicability to their work life
• Establish growth and development expectations and promote a 360’ feedback process whereby each mentor candidate assesses performance and provides corrective actions
• Lead situational leadership exercises to teach the candidates how to handle difficult business issues in a fair and consistent manner

Step 3: Mentor candidate creates a succession planning process and evaluate performance against career milestones

While this process is simple and takes little time, it is critical that leaders take an action role in the development of future leaders. The number one reason cited for employee satisfaction is feeling secure in one’s ability to do an effective job and be acknowledged and appreciated in doing that job.

What are you doing in your organization to "Grow Strong Leaders?"

-article from "Living Your Leadership Legacy" Newsletter
by Competitive Solutions, Inc.

Competitive Solutions, Inc.(CSI) is a leadership training and consulting company that specializes in helping organizations improve communication, develop meaningful business scorecards, create accountability at all levels and set behavioral expectations using a business alignment system called Process Based Leadership.®