3 Ways to Be a Better Mentor to Those You Lead

Do you ever feel lost when trying to mentor your team members? You're not alone. In this candid discussion, we, your hosts Calley Hewes and Valerie King-Malar, share three proven strategies to integrate mentorship into your leadership style. Our chat is brimming with practical advice and tools that'll serve as your compass while navigating the leadership landscape, irrespective of your nature, seasoned or novice. 

We don't stop there. We discuss the power of personal growth, challenging the status quo and stepping out of comfort zones. We believe in fostering an open culture where your team members can share their ideas, fears, and aspirations. We also highlight the importance of clear team goals and expectations. This clarity is a vital ingredient for a thriving, productive work culture. Ready to level up your leadership skills? Tune in for this insightful discussion on mentorship and leadership and get ready to transform your leadership style!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Brazen, a weekly podcast where we get down and dirty on how we can live a more bold, curious and vibrant life. We are your hosts, callie Hughes, a self-care coach and nurse practitioner, and Valerie King-Mowler, a business growth and mindset coach. In this podcast, we are helping women stop people pleasing and perfectionism, awaken their inner badass and discover what can happen when we take the lead in our own life. Join us as we explore everything available to us when we brazenly take accountability for our life and well-being. Let's get started. Welcome back to another episode of the Brazen podcast. We are your hosts, callie and Valerie, and today we want to talk about three different ways that you can infuse more mentorship into how you lead.

Speaker 2: 0:54

So to get us started, number one is to do one-on-one check-ins with your team, and I really like this particular step because I think it is beneficial on so many different levels. The first one is you get to know your team really well. It's a time for them to kind of come to you with any issues they have. It's a time for you to talk about where they want to be in the future. But it's also a chance to get to know what their strengths are and it's something that you're going to want to take that information and use going forward, because you're going to want to capitalize on what they're best at, because that is a recipe for them feeling more happy at work and more fulfilled, but also you getting the best results from your teammates. So these check-ins are just you know. You can schedule them as often as you can, but even you know once a quarter or you know once every few months can be really helpful. And just get it on the schedule and on the calendar and let them know ahead of time so that they can come with any topics and just make it very clear that this is their time to talk with you, and you know you're going to spend a lot of time listening and asking questions, but this is more their time to kind of bring stuff to you.

Speaker 1: 2:07

Yeah, and I think that this is a really great tool to use because, especially with more introverted employees or team members, they're probably not going to be the first people to speak up in a group type setting or in like a staff meeting or anything like that and bring their ideas forward.

Speaker 1: 2:31

They might. But I know that, like myself as an introvert, unless I'm like really confident in that idea, I'm probably going to wait until it's a smaller group or more of a one-on-one situation, because I just feel more comfortable discussing things and, you know, being vulnerable sharing an idea in that kind of environment. So that's something to keep in mind too, because you want to definitely be making sure that you are catering to all of your different personalities. So you know, obviously bringing things up in a group setting and asking for ideas or feedback is a great tool to kind of get group consensus, but also reviewing that and reiterating when you're in your one-on-ones just to see if anyone has any new ideas or if they might be just more comfortable bringing it to you in a more private type of a setting.

Speaker 2: 3:34

I like that you brought up catering to the different personalities too, because one thing that I've also noticed in the one-on-ones that I've done in the past is some people will come in and they are just flowing with conversation and information and others are just a little confused about what this check-in slash one-on-one actually is. And so sometimes also giving people a rough agenda like let's talk about your goals for the month, or let's talk about any new ideas you have, or let's talk about your thoughts from our last couple of group meetings, or kind of giving people a rough estimate of what they could talk about, can also be helpful, and some people won't need that. So I think you can make it clear that if there's something off topic you want to talk about, you can, but if you need some thought-provoking questions, these are some ideas.

Speaker 1: 4:33

Yeah, and I think just to really make it clear the mentorship aspect of having the one-on-ones is really helpful to help them create plans to further on their own personal goals. Also, one of the important roles of a mentor is not just to foster professional success but to make that success sustainable. So make it in the context of a work-life integration type of a scenario and get to know them on more of a personal level so that you can understand what their personal life might look like to a certain extent and help them figure out ways to blend their home life and their professional goals together. So that's a really good way to discuss that in those private one-on-one check-ins.

Speaker 2: 5:38

Yeah, and as you continue to do these check-ins, you're going to grow the trust between you and your teammates, and so it is a great time to really delve into that coaching mindset with them, where you can ask things like what are you struggling with the most right now?

Speaker 2: 5:55

And that can be personal or professional, and it's a great time for you to be able to A know where they're coming from and understand how that might be possibly affecting their performance.

Speaker 2: 6:06

But also give them some tools that you may already know to help them kind of overcome that, whether it's helping them find a therapist or if that's what they need, or if it's a workplace situation. Like you know, these five tips can help with their confidence or anything like that. So you can really open it up as the trust is building between the two of you. Number two is to put them in new and uncomfortable situations, and obviously you can make it very clear that you're there to support them and to give them tools and to catch them if there's any issues. But it's really important to kind of consistently and possibly slowly grow them outside their comfort zone, and so that means asking them to you know, take on slightly bigger and bigger roles in the company, or just encouraging them to try things they've never tried before or things that they are uncomfortable with, so that they can consistently grow.

Speaker 1: 7:08

And it's really important to kind of have an idea of the different types of ways that people respond to that kind of a thing like being pushed out of their comfort zone into a new uncomfortable situation. So sometimes people respond by being like yep, okay, I got it, and they just take the situation and they run with it and then they report back to you and you don't really hear a lot from them. You know, in the meantime they might be a really confident type of a personality and maybe they really do have it, but maybe they're also a little bit of that like fake it till. You make it kind of mindset and so you want to be going out of your way to check in with them and, to you know, maybe ask some probing questions to kind of get beyond the oh yeah, everything's going good, we're all on track. You know, maybe ask a few questions deeper to make sure that that's actually the case and they don't have any questions that they're not forthcoming with.

Speaker 1: 8:21

You know, for whatever reason, another type of a personality might require a ton of hand holding and support. They might be really nervous to like make any kind of a mistake and so they're hesitant to like do anything in this new situation without like getting that validation that, yep, that's good, go with that. So just understanding that certain people might need different levels of support and just making sure that you're not getting frustrated with the people who need a lot of support or ignoring the people who aren't actively coming to you for support Keeping that in mind is really helpful.

Speaker 2: 9:07

Yeah and that always brings up a really good point that as a leader, it is your responsibility to get to know your team well enough to know which kind of category people fall into or kind of. I think it's more of like a spectrum of you know, different responses and getting to know who needs what from you and being able to kind of keep that in mind when you are presenting something like this. Because if it is someone that's gonna need a lot of you know, hand holding or validation along the way, you're better off possibly doing very small steps as opposed to kind of really pushing them outside their comfort zone right away, because you're needing to kind of build up that confidence and just pushing them way outside their comfort zone is just gonna possibly be a recipe for them feeling like they failed or just kind of losing confidence going forward. So it is, you know, really important that you A celebrate when people do actually take it and run with it and or accomplish it what you want them to, but also make sure that it's clear that if it didn't go super well, that also that's normal and natural and part of the growing process, so that they don't lose confidence after that one instance of you know you trying to push them into uncomfortable situations.

Speaker 2: 10:26

And number three is to be clear with team goals and expectations. And this one is so important because Just imagine kind of going into the workplace and not knowing what your leader wants from you and then constantly just trying to figure out what it is they want and what the expectations are. And once you've set sort of the goals, if you're very clear with what the expectations are and what your goals are as a team, then as a leader you can be giving feedback based on those goals and expectations. It feels super unsafe if you're just giving random feedback with no expectations because they just don't know, like today is this important or that you know? And so just being very clear with it allows you to have kind of a baseline that you can then give consistent feedback and it won't be unexpected from their perspective.

Speaker 1: 11:20

Yeah, and I know that from past work situations that I've been in it's, I think, sometimes pretty common for there to be really clear goals, expectations and outcomes that you're looking for when somebody is on like a performance improvement plan or like I don't know whatever.

Speaker 1: 11:46

You call it probation, but it's not as common to have that same level of attention to the goals and expectations and outcomes before you get to that point.

Speaker 1: 12:00

You know Valerie alluded to this, but this is something that really goes a long way as far as contributing to the psychological safety within your workplace and within your culture. But when you don't have the clear expectations and clear goals, it kind of makes them wonder what exactly they're working for and they don't want to mess up because they don't want to get in trouble, but they also don't want to be doing nothing, and so it kind of makes people on edge and feel like they almost have to walk on eggshells. It kind of fosters resentment, sometimes if it kind of snowballs out of control a little bit. And so just make sure that, as a leader, you are putting the same effort into clarifying goals, clarifying expectations and like providing feedback based on those, like put the same attention like in everyday work environments, as you would if someone were on a performance improvement plan, because usually those are really specific, clear cut, like did you meet this expectation or not? Yes or no, like you know. That's kind of the level of clarity that you want to be striving for.

Speaker 2: 13:25

So these three ways are pretty easy to kind of implement with your team and they're a great way to build trust with your teammates and also to just really get to know them so that you can encourage their growth throughout their career at your company. And so that wraps up three ways to mentor and coach your team. And if you want additional information on being a leader, whatever the topic, you should check out our 90 minute new manager coaching session, and it's a totally individualized session so you can cover a bunch of different topics. Or if there's one in particular, like if you're really struggling with conflict or how to coach your team or any of those topics, we can cover that specifically and so we will link that in the show notes. But you can check that out and in the meantime, keep being brazen and we'll see you next week.

Speaker 2: 14:24

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the brazen podcast. We'd love to hear more about your parenthood or child free journey. So please feel free to email us at hello at brazenwomencom If you liked this episode. Please rate, review and share the episode so we can get the word out there. We'll be back here next Tuesday, but in the meantime, keep being brazen.