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Can Supervisors
Mentor People They Supervise?
© 2003, Barry Sweeny
Can supervisors mentor people they supervise? The answer is both
“Yes” and “No”.
The answer is “Yes”, in the sense that supervisors MUST have
and use mentoring skills if they expect to facilitate the professional
growth of people they supervise. This is true whether their subordinates
know the supervisor is using "mentoring" strategies or
not.
The answer is also “No”, for as Marilyn Ferguson has said,
“The door to change is always locked on the INSIDE". Unless
the supervisor-subordinate relationship is quite unusual, most employees
will not allow their evaluators to learn of their concerns and areas
which are in need of improvement. In fact, many employees will try
to hide their real problems from their supervisors. Even when supervisors
come to observe an employee at work, what they are likely to see
is a “dog and pony show”.
Sadly, no matter what the level of skill of a supervisor (or mentor
or coach), the other person will not take the risks of becoming
vulnerable and sharing real concerns with any person UNLESS there
is a strong relationship of trust and a feeling of emotional safety
with that person.
If the supervisor never plays "gotcha" with their
power and is consistently supportive, while holding high expectations
for performance for others AND themselves, THEN, the supervisor
will also be an effective mentor, at least to those who find they
CAN trust the supervisor and who choose to “open the door to change”.
If such a context does NOT exist, it can be built over an extended
time. However, as long as there is fear about trusting a supervisor,
the risk taking and sharing of real concerns and problems will not
occur and the growth of the subordinate (protege) will not happen.
This is why organizations which need high employee performance
and which are focused on increased results MUST have BOTH a high
impact mentoring program in ADDITION to great supervision. That
is why supervisors should always attend any mentor training held
for employees, even if they are not going to serve as official “mentors”
themselves.
That is also why mentors should hold confidential their conversations
with their proteges. If proteges find out their mentor is discussing
them with their supervisor, often the mentoring is over from that
point on.
Lastly, this is also why, rather than being evaluative, mentors
must facilitate the protege’s own self assessment. When that
happens, the protege will do the learning because they have to do
the analysis and the decision making. Mentors can make this happen
by asking proteges the questions that the mentors would ask themselves.
When mentors become evaluators too, we no longer need mentors, as
they have assumed the role of the supervisor.
Supervisors can and should mentor other supervisors, as long as
one’s mentor is not the supervisor of the protege and the mentoring
dialogue is held confidential. A good way to accomplish this is
cross-department mentoring. In fact, if you want managers who are
more supportive of an employee mentoring program, mentor the managers
to give them a personal experience of the impact of mentoring on
their own personal and career satisfaction and job performance.
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