Managers as Mentors

"Most leaders are socially conditioned to drive the process of learning; great mentors surrender to it."

"The roles mentors assume can either enhance or impede the learning process."

"The mentor's primary responsibility is to do a good job of managing the relationship through which proteges learn."

"As the person who is usually in the driver's seat at the outset of the relationship, the mentor must ensure a good start, the renewal of the original bond."

"The issue with advice is potential resistance; with feedback it is potential resentment."

"Socrates understood the secret of mentoring: effective questioning brings insight, which fuels curiosity, which cultivates wisdom."

"Trust has a special role in relationships in which there is an unequal distribution of power: trust is the equalizer."

"Listening is crucial to mentoring."

"It is not the role of the mentor to become a shrink and psychoanalyze the protege."

"Just like mentors, proteges sometimes harbor the notion that mentors should be superior."

"What should a mentor do to match teaching with timing? And how does the mentor demonstrate the right amount of attention?"

"The challenges for all mentors are when does too much support become rescuing? And when does too little support become a sign of callousness?"

"The most powerful contribution teachers can make to students is to help learners become their own teachers."

"Reaching over the protege's shoulder is an infringement of her space and actions and is more likely to interrupt learning than to facilitate it."

"Healthy mentoring relationships use separation as a tool for growth."