Leading A Team By Being A Mentor

Most organizations and companies develop “teams” to help create new ideas for the direction of the workplace as well as profits. Each team invariably has a team-leader, whose job it is to stimulate and motivate the rest of the group. It's the leader's job to develop the talents and strengthen the people that you have chosen to be on your team. This is true in the short term, as the team members deal with their assignment at hand. But it's also true long-term as the leaders must take a genuine responsibility for the lives and careers of the members of the team.

An effective leader would be asking "How would you like to improve?" "Where do you want your career to go from here?” "What kinds of new responsibilities would you like to be taking on?" It's your job as leader to ask all those questions and to use whatever knowledge and experience you possess to help team members achieve those goals.

Reinforce the confidence you have in their abilities. Give them standards to live up to. Issue genuine compliments in public: "Stacy has done a terrific job on this report." Send private notes: "That was a great comment you made today."

David Quelch, a leading expert in leadership and management development explains: "They're there very much in a coaching role, rather than to develop a report for a file that's going to determine your promotion. The goal is to enhance the effectiveness of the asset (the new faculty member) that we've invested in."

After class the senior faculty member might provide advice for both short-term and long-term improvement. "What I would try to say to a new faculty member", Quelch continues, is, “Here are some things you can do the next time you teach that will have a positive impact on the way you're received by the class. Suggestions might include something as seemingly trivial as writing larger on the blackboard or making sure that you don't hang around the blackboard and direct the class from one area at the front of the room. Wander around the entire room and stand behind the students. Share the experience.”

As Walter Lippmann wrote upon the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, "The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on."

Follow the above few simple techniques and watch how your team succeeds. The greatest reward a leader can achieve and the greatest legacy a leader can leave is a group of talented, self-confident, and cooperative people, who are themselves ready to lead others.