In most cases, your organization will have a number of more seasoned leaders who have dealt with similar challenges and could offer some help and guidance. By using coaching and mentoring programs strategically, you can support your newer managers with access to more experienced leaders, thereby cultivating an organizational culture that prioritizes learning and developing a pipeline of leaders who are resilient, agile, and engaged.

But how do you get started with organizational coaching and mentoring programs?

First, start with an understanding of how they’re similar and how they’re different.

Coaching and Mentoring Programs: What’s the Difference?

Coaching and mentoring are typically related and sometimes overlap. However, while both may be performed by the same leader, coaches and mentors serve different roles, and it’s important to know the difference between coaching and mentoring:

Coaching typically focuses on enhancing current job performance by helping someone resolve a here-and-now issue or blockage for themselves.

HR leaders often prioritize leadership coaching services, such as executive coaching, because coaching helps individual leaders hone self-awareness and provides individualized challenge and support. But coaching doesn’t always have to be provided by a formal coach; coaching can happen for everyone across the organization when people are skilled at holding coaching conversations.

Mentoring, on the other hand, focuses on career path. Rather than helping someone resolve a current challenge, mentoring at work is usually about a mentor helping a “mentee” to become more capable in the near future. Mentors take time to guide and advise their mentees on issues that will likely arise, but may not have yet.

Mentors leverage their expertise to transfer knowledge and help expand networks. They can also leverage their positions to sponsor mentees for developmental experiences, advocate on their behalf for promotions, and survey the environment for threatening forces and opportunities.

Recommendations for HR Leaders Implementing Coaching and Mentoring Programs

Learning to lead is an intensely personal experience, so it’s particularly important for new and emerging leaders to have access to coaches and mentors who can provide them with guidance, support, and context for their their development. Organizational coaching and mentoring programs can be a formal part of an enterprise-wide initiative, or they can be more informal arrangements that are agreed to by both parties.

If you’re designing, initiating, or implementing coaching programs, drive better outcomes by exploring our actionable handbook of coaching in organizations.

Creating a Culture of Coaching and Mentoring

When an organization has a “culture of coaching,” it has a culture that encourages giving feedback and honest conversations across functions and leader levels that amplify collaboration, agreement, and alignment.

Any conversation can become a leadership development opportunity when it’s candid.

Our research with emerging leaders shows that when people are in the early stages of their careers, they often feel it’s risky to speak up. When supervisors and informal coaches throughout the organization demonstrate that they value the thoughts and perspectives of even the youngest members of their teams, they build understanding and glean a more accurate picture of the challenges and opportunities their direct reports face.

Senior leaders and managers can apply the following foundational conversational skills to all of their interactions to coach their people, helping to foster an organizational culture of feedback, coaching, and candor:

Build These 4 Conversational Skills for a Coaching Culture

1. Listen to understand.

When supervisors listen to colleagues, they should be aware of their own agenda. Instead of trying to promote that agenda, listening to understand involves listening with an open mind for facts, feelings, and values.

2. Ask powerful questions.

As 2 people delve into a conversation, they can uncover new insights by making inquiries that stretch the other person’s thinking. Encourage “coaches” to begin their questions with “what” or “how” to tap into feelings and values that encourage reflection.

3. Strike a balance between challenge and support.

Listening to understand doesn’t mean listening to agree. Supervisors can show their support by restating the facts and values they hear. When 2 people have a shared trust built on psychological safety, they are able to ask tough, challenging questions that uncover unexamined assumptions.

4. End your conversation with clear next steps.

Supervisors can establish a sense of accountability by agreeing to next steps. That can be as easy as committing to one small action item that moves the issue forward and demonstrates that the supervisor values the facts and emotions shared by the individual being coached.

Consider What Makes Mentoring Programs Successful

Whereas coaching is intended to address a current challenge, mentoring looks to the future. Therefore, the most successful mentoring programs include careful, strategic planning.

According to our guidebook, Seven Keys to Successful Mentoring, mentoring is an intentional, developmental relationship between a more experienced, knowledgeable person and a less experienced, less knowledgeable person. Often, but not always, this means an older person mentoring a younger one, although reverse mentoring arrangements flip this model around, but work in much the same way.

When creating or improving an organizational mentoring initiative, use these strategies and questions as a guide:

• Be purposeful and strategic. Before you begin pairing mentors and mentees, consider your goals and how these goals fit into your overall development efforts. Think about how your demographics might change in the next 5 years: Who will retire, and who will backfill those roles? How will this mentoring program fit into your overall business plan and human resources strategies?
• Engage leaders. The most effective mentorship programs have buy-in at the executive level. Once you’ve outlined your goals, clearly articulate and communicate those goals. What role can the CEO and senior team play in the process? Who else in the organization will help make the formal mentoring program work?
• Start small. It takes time to recruit and brief the right mentors and mentees, and lessons learned from the beginning of the program can prove beneficial when it’s time to extend it to more people. Be sure your program includes a diverse group of leaders (all genders, people of color, different levels/career stages, etc.) and establishes clear rules about confidentiality to establish trust.
• Train mentors and mentees on skills for developing the relationship and holding mentor conversations. You can’t assume senior people will have the right skills for mentoring. Investing time and resources in training also shows that the company leadership values the program. Along the way, offer support for mentors; this support should be included in the program’s design.
• Measure and share. What is most important for the organization and those participating? Consider the specific needs of the mentoring partners, HR, and business leaders. How can you publicize any early wins in order to build momentum?

Coaching and Mentoring Programs: Especially Key for New Leaders

As noted in our white paper on mentoring first-time managers, when individual contributors are promoted into their first formal leadership positions, many don’t expect the transition to be as difficult as it is. Worse, they often lack the support and development needed to help make that transition successfully. Without support, new managers can suffer — along with their teams and direct reports. By extension, this affects the organization’s retention levels and leadership pipeline, which ultimately can negatively impact the bottom line.

Given the important role that frontline managers play in talent development and succession management, organizations should help ease the transition for new managers by providing them with access to leadership development — especially courses targeted to the needs of new managers — and by exploring formal organizational coaching and mentoring programs to support them.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Give your new leaders the support they need to reach their full potential and help move your organization forward through a combination of coaching and mentoring programs, coaching and conversational skills training, and proven development courses that work for your culture and needs.

The post How to Use Coaching and Mentoring Programs to Develop New Leaders appeared first on CCL.

Our white paper explores what research suggests are the direct benefits of leadership development (i.e., program-specific outcomes) and the indirect benefits of development, including increased employee engagement and attractiveness to potential employees. It outlines 4 key leadership development benefits that have emerged from both our own and other research, noting that investments in leadership development:

1. Facilitate organizational alignment,
2. Enhance the organization’s change readiness,
3. Promote equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), and
4. Strengthen leadership pipelines.

Creating Competitive Leadership Advantage

When implemented effectively and comprehensively, leadership development has the potential to grow individuals and transform an entire organization from being one that merely meets its objectives into one that excels.

That’s why we say that one of the key benefits of leadership development is also simply that it creates competitive leadership advantage. And having a competitive leadership advantage not only raises the organization’s level of leadership capacity, developing a healthy leadership pipeline for the future, but also enables organizational agility, which is essential in today’s era of constant disruption.

One of the most critical drivers of organizational success in adapting to change is effective leadership at all levels — not just at the top.

To create the engagement and productivity required for this level of performance, leaders need to inspire others, drive innovation, collaborate across boundaries, and create an environment of psychological safety and inclusion. But these leadership skills don’t simply emerge and spread throughout the organization on their own. It takes focused effort and intentional strategy to optimize the leadership talent organizations need today and in the future.

Building these needed skills, from the top to the bottom of your organization, can feel like an impossible task. How can you possibly get quality development into the hands of all employees to fully leverage the benefits of leadership development?

The answer is by implementing a leadership development initiative that can be scaled. A scalable leadership development program is one that can easily be adapted and executed across an organization, regardless of its size or structure. A scalable development program unlocks leadership development’s benefits and creates significant competitive leadership advantage.

Download our white paper today to learn the many benefits of leadership development and how to scale it to start building a stronger talent pipeline at your organization.

Download White Paper

The post Creating Competitive Leadership Advantage: 4 Ways That Scaling Development Powers Engagement, Retention & ROI appeared first on CCL.

As news headlines proliferate about what today’s employees want from work and how much organizations can expect from their people, purpose is emerging as a critical success factor. Purpose in leadership supports improved individual and organizational outcomes.

Purpose-driven leadership means helping employees find personal meaning in their work and fostering a deeply committed workforce that thrives on shared goals and aspirations. Purpose-driven leaders model value-based decision-making, take time to learn what truly matters to their employees, connect work to a greater objective, and help employees understand their organization’s mission and find ways to personally connect to it.

But purpose, just like organizational culture change, doesn’t thrive without intentional effort. To create a sustainable purpose-driven culture, managers must embody and promote a sense of purpose in their leadership, daily operations, and decision-making.

Why Is Purpose in Leadership Important?

So, what are the benefits of purpose-driven leadership? First, purpose helps create a shared sense of direction, alignment, and commitment; builds belonging at work; fosters greater organizational performance; and increases persistence through challenges.

In fact, purpose is often one of the main drivers of employee engagement and satisfaction. Our research with emerging leaders around the globe suggests that purpose is one of the greatest predictors of whether young professionals pursue leadership positions and, for those in a leadership role, whether leaders feel empowered to make a difference.

In addition, purpose-driven leaders are more likely to develop and maintain strong relationships with their direct reports. Articulating a clear, inspiring vision that resonates with others is key.

Purpose-driven leadership creates space for alignment of goals and values between individual employees and the overall organization. When employees understand why they’re carrying out their work, they care more about what they accomplish. (Though critical for all employees, value alignment is especially key for younger generations in the workforce. Organizational mission and vision can be an important deciding factor in recruitment and retention — especially among younger Gen Z and Millennial workers.)

Finding purpose in day-to-day work also makes employees better equipped to navigate challenges and persist, even through difficult tasks.

Purpose Is Universal, but Not Uniform

6 Things That Drive a Sense of Purpose

While the desire for purpose is a fundamental human need, what employees value and derive purpose from is not. Research suggests that purpose can arise from a range of sources, such as:

1. Utility: Work is practically relevant to our goals and aspirations, either now or in the future.
2. Personal Development: Work facilitates opportunities for self-growth, developing either skillsets or mindsets in personally meaningful ways.
3. Impact: Work empowers us to make a tangible and positive difference in the world, contributing to the greater good of society, our communities, or those close to us.
4. Identity Reinforcement: Work reinforces our sense of self, aligning with the core elements of who we are.
5. Intrinsic Interest: Work is inherently fun and energizing, offering enjoyable experiences that naturally appeal to our interests.
6. External Rewards: Work leads to a desirable payoff, from a paycheck to a promotion.

As varied as the unique experiences that individuals bring to work are the ways they find meaning in it. Take, for instance, being asked to help start a new Employee Resource Group at an organization:

• One person may jump at the opportunity because it helps display leadership potential (utility) and is accompanied by an additional stipend (external).
• Another might agree because they see themselves as someone who advocates for wellbeing (identity) and wants to support work colleagues (prosocial).

Both employees may be taking the same purpose-driven leadership action, but they have different reasons for doing so. Without exploring their unique drivers, leaders simply cannot know why employees choose to engage at work.

Each Finding Their Own Meaning Is Critical

Why is it important to know what your employees value? Because telling them where to find meaning can backfire. In one study, researchers conducted a series of experiments teaching college students a new mental math technique. They found that telling students why the approach was valuable undermined how well they applied it and how interested they were in using it in the future. Importantly, this impacted the least confident students the most.

Consider a parallel at work. If a sales director tells his regional leads exactly why they should care about a new system for tracking leads, there’s a stronger chance that buy-in and performance will suffer if those reasons don’t personally matter to the employees. If employees have an opportunity to identify why the system is useful to them and make connections for themselves, by contrast, they’re likely to use the program more frequently and effectively.

As a leader, you want each person on your team to be able to determine for themselves why and how their work connects to purpose, rather than dictating to them why it’ll be valuable. When your employees have autonomy to find their own meaning, a culture of purpose is easier to cultivate.

To be clear, this doesn’t imply that leaders should avoid sharing their own reasons why work is meaningful. Modeling conversations about purpose can help employees find their own meanings. The critical piece is to allow individuals the freedom and permission to consider and discuss their own purpose, so their reasons feel relevant and personal to them.

Implementing Purpose-Driven Leadership at Your Organization

2 Keys for Cultivating Greater Purpose in Leadership

It’s one thing to say that purpose is important, and another to create a culture of purpose-driven leadership at your organization. While few people disagree that purpose in leadership is important, it’s not ubiquitous. If leading with purpose was easy or intuitive, everyone would be doing it.

So, how can managers embrace and embody purpose in leadership and their everyday work? Here are 2 essential keys to cultivating an environment where managers and employees can connect and find purpose in leadership and in their daily work.

1. Weave organizational mission, vision & values into your communications.

Remember that employees have to know the organization’s overarching purpose before they can make connections to it for themselves. Values may drive your organization’s decision-making at the most senior levels, but they’re easy for employees to overlook in the midst of projects, deadlines, and day-to-day activities. So, it’s important to speak often about your organization’s mission, vision, and values to give employees ample opportunities to connect and align their own values to their tasks and projects.

Make purpose more salient for them by effectively and intentionally communicating the vision, mission, and values of the organization — and by reinforcing these again and again over time.

TIP: Model finding connections between organizational values and your team’s (or your own) projects whenever possible. Some specific practices to try:

• Seek out opportunities to build purpose alignment into existing structures at work, such as during annual reviews or all-staff meetings. Invite your senior leadership team to provide examples of leading with purpose (both personal and organizational) in public settings, company-wide communications, quarterly retreats, and team meetings. Personal, specific, and meaningful stories are most effective at signaling a commitment to purpose and catalyzing greater buy-in and alignment. Make a point of bringing powerful real-life experiences to the forefront; sharing examples of helping others or bettering a community at large through corporate social responsibility efforts can be particularly helpful.
• Consider asking colleagues directly what parts of the organizational mission resonate most for each of them. You can open the door for deeper exploration by modeling; simply take 5 minutes to think about or list your personal values, current work activities, and note the specific, meaningful connections you see between them. Share as much of this as you like and use it as a discussion-starter to learn more about what matters most to others. When new employees onboard or move into bigger roles, intentionally engage them in team meetings or one-on-one conversations about how their work might fit into the bigger organizational picture.
• At the beginning and / or end of projects, build in time for team members to reflect on how the project contributes to the organization’s overall business objectives and mission. This can be part of the conversations for setting team norms up front, or used as an exercise during an after-action review or “lessons learned” session after the fact.

When weaving organizational purpose and mission into conversations, remember that employees need dedicated time to reflect on the connections for themselves. By building in intentional opportunities to find meaning, purpose-driven leaders signal to employees that finding purpose at work is a valued part of the organizational culture.

2. Understand what drives your team members.

The more you know your employees — and create opportunities for them to connect with one another and the larger organization — the easier it is to help reinforce their sense of purpose. Seek to understand the perspectives of your direct reports through a lens of showing compassion and respect, as each individual brings a different set of experiences and aspirations to work.

Compassionate leadership means being aware of the feelings, thoughts, and needs of others. Compassion enables leaders to understand and respond to the unique needs, perspectives, and emotions of their teams, fostering a more supportive and inclusive environment. Beyond the obvious feel-good value of showing compassion, managers who show empathy in the workplace toward those they are responsible for are viewed as better performers by their bosses. It’s a “win” for all involved.

Purpose-driven leaders also understand and leverage the power of identity. This involves both creating an environment where team members feel psychologically safe at work to share their personal experiences and understanding the way that employees view themselves with respect to work. For instance, our research suggests that simply identifying as a leader is associated with greater confidence and engagement in the workplace and can be cultivated by support from others.

TIP: Help employees recognize and embrace the many different reasons they might find meaning at work. Some specific practices to try:

• Share your own reasons that you find your work meaningful, providing examples of several different sources of purpose. Speak in the first person (using I, we, my, our, etc.), and encourage them to do the same. Include details and examples to help build more specific and meaningful connections and invite them to share their personal “why” with one another (and you).
• Make space for whatever they share about their perspectives and experiences, remembering that purpose is universal — but not uniform. Normalize that there is no “right” way to find meaning at work. As conversations unfold, actively listen for what matters most to your employees. You may want to keep notes for yourself on what you learn about each person’s purpose so you can refer back later, especially if you manage a large team.
• Use this information to help make work more personally relevant for each individual. Importantly, after gaining a better understanding of what drives each of your employees, keep that top-of-mind going forward when interacting with them, assigning tasks, and planning growth and development opportunities for them. That way, you’re motivating employees in a tailored and personalized way.

By working from an understanding of what is individually meaningful to each of your team members, showing compassion for their experiences and perspectives, and using this information to tailor your interactions, work assignments, and development plans for them going forward, you signal support for employee wellbeing and create an environment where colleagues feel valued, respected, engaged, and eager to contribute — ultimately driving your team and organization forward.

A Closing Word on Purpose in Leadership

Organizations that focus on purposeful leadership — with managers who help their direct reports find meaning in their work and connect their personal values to the organization’s — have a better chance of attracting, engaging, and retaining talent and enabling the enterprise to meet business objectives more effectively.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Equip your people managers with the mindsets and skillsets required for purpose-driven leadership. Partner with us to create a customized learning journey for your leaders using our research-based modules. Available leadership topics include Authentic Leadership, Emotional Intelligence, Listening to Understand, Psychological Safety, Self-Awareness, Team Leadership, Wellbeing, and more.

The post Purpose in Leadership: Why & How appeared first on CCL.

Previous research has shown that having women in the workplace is key for organizations’ bottom lines:

• Fortune 500 companies with the highest representation of women on boards financially outperform companies with the lowest representation of women on boards.
• Mixed-gender teams have higher sales and profits compared to male-dominated teams.
• A recent Gallup study found that mixed-gender business units have higher average revenue than more homogenous business units.

But the benefits of having more women in the workplace are not limited to just financial gains.

Women in the Workplace & Workplace Wellbeing

Having more women in the workplace actually makes an organization a better place to work, for people of all genders, our research found.

In a large survey study, we asked hundreds of respondents to estimate what percentage of individuals in their workplace were women. Answers ranged from 0–100%, with the average being about 45% (pretty close to the US national workplace average). We then asked them a number of questions about their workplace environments.

Results showed that having a higher percentage of women in the workplace predicted:

• More job satisfaction;
• More organizational dedication;
• More meaningful work; and
• Less burnout.

But that’s not all — we found that having more women in the workplace was also positively related to employee engagement and retention. Specifically, when asked why they stay with their current employer, people from organizations with a high percentage of women were more likely to cite positive and meaningful organizational culture, including having:

• Enjoyable work;
• A job that fits well with other areas of their life; and
• Opportunities to make a difference.

These new findings persist, regardless of participants’ age, industry, organization size, leadership level, ethnicity, and gender.

In fact, our findings were even stronger for men on some measures. Specifically, men reported being more satisfied with their job, enjoying their work more, and not feeling as burned out if they worked for companies that employed higher percentages of women.

3 Things Women in the Workplace Want

Given this finding, you might be considering what you can do to attract, retain, and promote women in your organization. Our study also asked women about what they want from the workplace. Here’s what we found:

Women Want a Calling — Not Just a 9-to-5

The most common reason women gave for staying with their current employer was that their job fits well with other areas of their life, followed by enjoying the work that they do, and believing that their job gives them the opportunity to make a difference.

Moreover, many women talked about having personally meaningful work that connects to their values, purpose, and work-life balance. Together, these reasons describe a specific type of employment that social scientists refer to as “a calling.” Callings are jobs that people feel drawn to pursue; find intrinsically enjoyable and meaningful; and see as a central part of their identity. Research shows that experiencing work as a “calling” is related to increased job satisfaction.

Women Want Flexibility in Where, When & How They Work

When women were asked to rate the importance of workplace perks and benefits, flexibility concerns rose to the top of the list. Paid time off was rated as the most important perk, followed by healthcare benefits, paid leadership development, flexible schedules, and opportunities to move up in the organization.

Compared to a control group of men, women also rated paid time off and working from home as higher priorities. Flexibility might be particularly critical when it comes to retaining talented women who also want to raise families — women with children rated having a flexible schedule and being able to work from home as more important compared to women who didn’t have children.

Yet, research has found that women are actually less likely to get this much-needed flexibility than men are. Stand out as a great organization for women by offering equitable flexibility.

Women Want Real Leadership Opportunities

In our sample, women were just as likely as men to be interested in raises, promotions, and leadership development opportunities. They were also just as likely to ask for and accept leadership opportunities.

But women in the workplace expressed different reasons for turning down leadership opportunities compared to men. Men typically turned down positions because they didn’t want them (e.g., not interested in the role, didn’t like the supervisor, didn’t want to relocate, didn’t want to work longer hours, or didn’t get offered enough money). While some women shared these concerns, women also uniquely mentioned that they were not confident in their qualifications, weren’t sure that others would support them, and were worried that they were being set up for failure.

Unfortunately, research suggests that these concerns among women are valid. Studies show that organizations expect women to be more qualified than men for the same positions, and that leadership opportunities for men often come with more resources (funding, supervisor support, team size) compared to women’s leadership opportunities.

What’s more, women are more likely to get “glass cliff” positions — leadership opportunities that are high stakes, precarious, and have a high likelihood of failure.

Given this, it’s not surprising that many women said that the single most important thing organizations can do to attract and retain talented women is to admonish sexism and offer gender parity in pay, experiences, and opportunities for success.

What Organizations & Leaders Can Do to Support Women in the Workplace

Based on these findings, here are a few things organizational leaders can do to help women (and people of all genders) get what they want out of work:

• Help employees find meaningfulness and enjoyment in their work. Take the time to learn about their personal values, passions, strengths, and life goals. Brainstorm ways to integrate these things into their career. Small changes in how work is framed and executed can go a long way toward turning a job into a calling.
• When possible and practical, support people in working remotely, and allow them to work hours that make sense for their lives outside of work. Creative solutions such as job sharing (having multiple people share one role), virtual work teams, and sabbatical options can help employers find the best talent no matter where or when they need to work.
• Give all genders equal opportunities to get promotions, raises, and develop their leadership skills — coupled with the resources and support system they need to achieve success. Effective leader development experiences need to be challenging, yet obtainable, with clear rewards for efforts and successes. Provide mentoring and sponsoring to support talented women with a network of champions.

We all know that working women are here to stay, but if you want talented women leaders to stay in your organization, it’s time to give women what they want from work.

These are just some of the many findings of our research report on women leaders in the workplace, based on responses from almost 750 leaders and aspiring leaders. Download our full white paper to dig deeper into our findings about women in the workplace and to learn how your organization can attract, retain, and promote top talent of all genders.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Attract and retain more women in your workplace, and build a culture where all leaders can thrive, by partnering with us for customized women’s leadership development. 

The post Women in the Workplace: Why Women Make Great Leaders & How to Retain Them appeared first on CCL.

This is a common refrain we hear from senior HR leaders. Yet, mentoring in organizations is ideal for helping to retain top talent and build a leadership pipeline.

Many high-performing organizations consider mentoring a key competency among their leaders — and leaders who take mentoring seriously and handle it effectively have a profound impact.

Whether it’s a formal or informal arrangement, mentoring at work benefits everyone involved: the mentor, the mentee, and the organization that supports it. Effective mentors develop the leadership capacity of their mentees, while increasing their own skills. They nurture the alignment between employee aspirations and organizational imperatives, and they create depth and loyalty within their organizations. Plus, they transfer their knowledge and expertise back into their organizations.

Here are some of our research findings, insights, and recommendations on mentoring in organizations to help you structure an effective mentoring program.

First, What Is Mentoring at Work?

Our guidebook, Seven Keys to Successful Mentoring, defines mentoring as an intentional, developmental relationship in which a more experienced and more knowledgeable person nurtures the professional and personal life of a less experienced, less knowledgeable person. 

Typically, a mentor has been in an organization or profession longer and has greater authority within the organization or profession than does a mentee. The combination of expertise and position enables a mentor to have significant impact on a mentee. (We say “typically” because reverse mentoring arrangements flip this model, and can also be highly beneficial.)

Mentoring at work can motivate individuals to learn and grow, expose them to learning opportunities, and provide support for the learning and growth. In many cases such relationships are mutually developmental, for mentor and mentee alike.

Who Benefits From Mentoring in Organizations?

Organizations benefit greatly from mentoring programs. Mentoring at work helps businesses attract and retain talent, and enhance organizational commitment among employees who seek developmental opportunities. Turnover decreases, and development accelerates. Typically, mentors have a well-developed view of organizational direction and dynamics, which they impart to mentees, and can better align a mentee’s efforts with organizational objectives, enhancing organizational capacity.

The people who are mentored benefit in numerous ways, gaining access to leadership opportunities, career mobility, better rewards and higher compensation, increased adaptability when facing new situations, improved professional identity, greater professional competence, increased career satisfaction, greater acceptance within their organizations, and decreased job stress and role conflict. Additionally, mentees enjoy some of the credibility and influence of the mentor through association.

And mentors themselves benefit as well. Many studies have shown that mentors are more satisfied with their jobs and more committed to their organizations than those who are not mentors.

And research has found that leaders judged as effective mentors by their direct reports had higher performance ratings from their bosses.

Mentoring at Work Helps Both New and Experienced Leaders

New leaders need support as they move from individual contributor to managing others. While this transition period has always been demanding, it’s been intensified by a changing world where disruption and uncertainty have become the norm.

Mentoring programs can help reduce and reframe barriers that may be holding emerging leaders back from achieving their full potential. Coaching and mentoring programs are particularly beneficial for developing new leaders.

Mentoring can also provide an excellent opportunity for more experienced staff who want to become managers. One of the biggest skill gaps that many managers have is the ability to coach, develop, and mentor their own direct reports. While developing employees is important for managers to do, many aren’t as strong at it as they need to be.

By serving as mentors at work, managers help mentees while also improving their own performance, gaining essential management skills, and increasing their job satisfaction. In fact, as noted in our white paper, we’ve found that those who mentor and advocate for others:

• Are perceived by others as more effective leaders;
• Have a stronger commitment to their organizations;
• Enjoy a greater sense of wellbeing, including increased job and personal satisfaction; and
• Strengthen their personal networks and get quicker access to job-related and organizational news.

In short, great leaders need to be mentored. And, great leaders need to mentor.

Developing Effective Mentoring Programs in Organizations

Recommendations for HR Leaders

All successful leaders need a network of champions to support them and advocate on their behalf, and mentoring (and sponsorship) programs can be an important step toward building a stronger leadership pipeline at your organization. But even without a formal organizational mentoring program in place, talent management professionals can still attract and retain more talent by:

• Building organizational mentoring and sponsoring into leadership development efforts and onboarding processes;
• Creating formal programs to pair high-potentials with specific mentors and sponsors; and
• Encouraging a culture where mentoring and sponsorship of talent is expected.

The key for successful formalized programs around mentoring in organizations is to set clear roles and responsibilities, and to have clear objectives for establishing coaching and/or mentoring arrangements. To make those things happen, consider these recommendations.

1. Ask questions that invite your systems to evolve.

Challenge assumptions when you hear them, and try to open up possibilities for different styles and skillsets. Ask what might be overlooked as you fill positions: “Here’s the profile of the last person in this job … but what abilities might we need now?” Look for ways to increase inclusive leadership practices across the organization.

2. Support leaders in mentoring and sponsoring by strengthening their coaching and conversation skills.

Don’t assume senior executives are clear about their role in helping other leaders, or that they know how to have developmental conversations, particularly with a mentee or sponsoree. If senior leaders are “expected” to mentor and sponsor more junior high-potentials, ensure these expectations are explicit and transparent — for example, included in the talent management, succession planning, or performance review processes.

Prepare executives for the unexpected by providing them with guidance, tools, leadership development, and support to know how to coach their people. To do this, you may want to explore avenues to help them build their self-awareness, listening skills, and confidence in coaching others through conversational skills training programs.

Some Final Thoughts on Mentoring at Work

There are lots of ways to structure mentoring in organizations. It can be an HR or organizational initiative, with formal structuring, monitoring, and organizationally aligned goals, or it can be a more informal process developed by the parties involved with limited guidance from HR.

Whatever shape your organizational mentoring program takes, remember that the most successful mentoring programs include careful, strategic planning. Use these resources to develop your mentoring program and see the results of improved engagement, retention, and overall performance.

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The post Mentoring at Work: How (and Why) to Implement It in Your Organization appeared first on CCL.