Mentor relationships: a definition

The following definition comes largely based on Kathy Kram and the interpretations of others who followed after her.

An intense/deep/meaningful relationship between two people, one of whom is more experienced/influencial/higher ranking than the other in one or more areas/domains of life.  The more experienced/etc individual guides/protects/councils/teaches/supports/etc the other.

**

Eby, L. T., & Allen, T. D. (2002). Further investigation of protégés’negative mentoring expe-
riences patterns and outcomes. Group & Organization Management, 27(4), 456-479.

Kram, K. E. (1980). Mentoring processes at work:Developmental relationships in manager-
ial careers. Unpublished doctoral dissertation,Yale University, New Haven, CT.

Kram, K. E. (1983). Phases of the mentor relationship. Academy of Management Journal,
26(4), 608-625.

Ragins, B. R. (1997b). Diversified mentoring relationships in organizations: A power per-
spective. Academy of Management Review, 22(2), 482-521.

Zey, M. G. (1984). The mentor connection. Homewood, IL:Dow Jones-Irwin.

Mentors and Coaches

I have spent the past day thinking about those who have been my mentors and coaches.  One thing strikes me:  not all these relationships were declared or might even be recognized by the other party.  My list reads as a “who’s who” of positive influence in my life.

My mentors range from the personal, professional, spiritual, and educational.

One of my early mentors was Zach Staenberg.  In college I hated editing.  But Zach’s passion and insights challenged me and helped to shift my thinking.  He was not my coach.  In that situation my coach would have been the first or second assistant editor (I was the apprentice).

Another early professional mentor was David Frankel.  Over the three months I worked with him I remember discussing his insights and philosophies on the process of film/TV production – again, shaping my perspectives and future practices.

To a lesser extent, yet still true, Michael Rachmil, Norman Steinberg, Matthew Ody and Stan Golden also acted as mentors and the latter two, as coaches.   During my initial work for Roger Corman, the first projectionist I met (sorry, I don’t have a name) was a coach – seriously.  Having told Roger Corman I knew how to run a 35mm double system projector (I didn’t), the projectionist on another one of Corman’s films coached me through the process and I was able to run the dailies for him for a few weeks.

Mentors were far and few between my exit from Hollywood and my entrance to education.  Mailen Kootsey whose passion for technology and education challenged my thinking and perspectives, energizing me into educational technology and a Masters in Education.

Personal Mentors:
My father

Spiritual Mentors:
A Graham Maxwell
Robert Wieland
Jonathan Gallagher

Educational Mentors:
Mailen Kootsey
Dave Gilsdorf
My 5th and 6th grade teachers were great coaches, as was my 9th and 10th grade English teacher.  Certainly other teachers have played a positive coaching role.

Can people you have never met mentor or coach you?  At first I admit that I hesitate to say “yes”.  However, I can’t shake the influence of authors, and artists of all sorts whose handiwork has either mentored me or coached me in one or more of my life’s domains.  Clearly as I engage with their works I engage in a relationship with them.

Among these who I consider mentors:  David Dunn (“Try Giving Yourself Away”); John Eldredge (“Wild at Heart”); Ellen White (“Desire of Ages” and “God Made Manifest in Christ” among others);  Ensemble for “Babette’s Feast” and “My Life as a Dog”.

And for coaching, pretty much anything by Henry Cloud and John Townsend.

I too am the work of my mentors and coaches.  This brings me to consider that as people engage with me or my works, you have also in some way engaged with my mentors and coaches.  Naturally the reverse is true too.

Mentoring & Coaching: Initial Definitions

Definitions:
A quick perusal of Google’s “define” function brings up the following sampling:

Mentorship refers to a developmental relationship between a more experienced mentor and a less experienced partner referred to as a protégé …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentoring

• mentor – serve as a teacher or trusted counselor; “The famous professor mentored him during his years in graduate school”; “She is a fine lecturer but she doesn’t like mentoring”
• mentor – a wise and trusted guide and advisor
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

There are categories of mentoring:  peer; youth; professional; clinical; technical; and so forth.

The term “coaching” returns the following from Google:

Coaching is a method of directing, instructing and training a person or group of people, with the aim to achieve some goal or develop specific …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coaching

coach – a person who gives private instruction (as in singing, acting, etc.)
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Here, again, a variety of categories:  life; executive; personal; conflict; business; career online; performance; and so on.

By these definitions then, coaching is specific and mentoring is broad.  Coaching would be based on some form of reciprocity, mentoring need not be.  Perhaps, there is much overlap of practice between the two as well.

In a conversation today with a faculty, he described my work clearly as a mentor, in that I have more experience, and enter easily into mentoring type relationships with less experienced proteges.  At the same time, I clearly see myself as a coach, training, directing, and instructing for very specific objectives.  In thinking about my job: I am a coach by these definitions.  The mentoring part comes to play with those who wish to move beyond “mere” coaching.

Mentoring and Coaching: Opening Thoughts

For the next three weeks I am focusing on “Coaching and Mentoring”.  What are they?  How are they practiced?  What do they look like in practice?

To start off with, what does each word mean to me now?

Coaching and mentoring to me, are separate and distinct from each other.  To my way of thinking mentoring suggests a specific relationship between a mentor and protege.  While Mentoring can include coaching, coaching does not include mentoring.

Both coaching and mentoring can be formal or informal.  Formal aspects would include practices entered into specifically and purposefully for a specified duration or outcome.  Informal would be much more casual and fluid, perhaps with less defined duration and less specific outcomes.

Examples:
Formal:
An organization has a formal program of mentoring between senior management and middle/lower management for specific duration/outcomes in the development and cultivation of skills and development.

Informal
An organization hires an executive coaching consultant company to work with senior management on certain issues/goals.  They are also retained to work on specific development goals with junior managers.  Optionally, to work through a very specific set of problems in which major “egos” are involved.

What are you insights and opinions?

Defining Leadership

Walking this morning I was thinking about leadership.  There are many definitions.  In fact how we define leadership influences all aspects of applying leadership principles.

It is not my wish to negate other definitions, but to provide my own.  You are welcome to disagree, by having your own definition, but again, keep in mind I’m not trying to “diss” your definition or anyone’s.  This is my exploration and you are welcome to journey with me.  If you choose to journey with me, please DO help me explore these thoughts for themselves.

My base line belief is that leadership is for everyone, everywhere, all the time.  But that itself doesn’t define.  Rather my definition starts with this:  Leadership is about relationship and influence.

What are the top three attributes of a leader?

So went the question posed to the LinkedIn community.

My response? Everyone serves as a “leader” in some capacity because leaders are relational through relationships, influence. Thus a father, mother, brother, or sister are leaders. The CEO, middle manager, and line worker are leaders. We can exert our leadership for good or for ill.

I think the greatest people/leaders:
1) serve life by taking care of themselves; others; and the environment
2) know themselves and help others know themselves
3) know that they are part of something bigger than “self” and help others gain a sense of purpose and destiny

LEAD636: Issues In Leadership Foundation

I have started a new course.  The books are great.  I will get to those later. (Hopefully with a review of each one along the way.)  This first week we are looking at basics of “world view”.

Out of context here is my first posting to my classmates in response to an assignment:

Sire p 20
In general, I have to admit that my first take on these questions is somewhere based on my religious experiences and background and the possibility that they could all be “fabricated” fantasies.

Q1: Ultimate reality (and perhaps “absolute truth) are in God

Q2: The external world exists apart from us and as part of us. We exert profound influence for better or worse. Likewise we are influenced by the external. While a tree falling in the forest creates waves of “sound”, it takes a creature capable of receiving and translating those waves to know “sound”. There is an extent to which we create our reality (i.e. our perspective) and there is still a larger reality we don’t see. The qualities of “nature” are both ordered and chaotic; linear and nonlinear; concrete and abstract.

Q3: Human beings are mortal; free to choose (and limited only by their choices); Human beings are spiritual; physical; emotional; and social creatures; complex and adaptive systems.

Q4: At death human beings cease to exist. No “soul floating”; no going to heaven; no reincarnation. Nothing but a ceasing of existence. My belief system does allow for a resurrection of life at a later time.

Q5: At first thought I would say because we were created that way. But I find myself completely comfortable with other explanations. The root for me is that we DO consider “meanings”; we DO seek to know and grow.

Q6: Details of “right and wrong” vary from culture to culture. So some sense of right and wrong are embedded in culture. I believe we all have two “voices” inside: one calls us to agape and the other to selfishness. Agape calls us to consider self and others in our choices.

Q7: Examination of human history allows us to see the workings of our minds in relationship to beliefs. From my perspective, meaning is found in our history by how we understand God’s “big picture” or “great controversy” between good and evil.

Stevenson

Q2: What brought us into being?
I have the concept of a divine being called “God” who created the universe. God is infinite and has existed always.

Q1: What is our place in the universe?
Humanity is not alone in the universe. I believe there are intelligent beings elsewhere in the universe. At minimum I accept that, because God created the universe, he created angels, and most likely other intelligent beings. God’s foundational principle is agape love. Because love cannot be commanded, choice becomes essential to all intelligent creatures.

Q4: What is the nature of humanity?
Only God is immortal. Everything else is mortal. God is life. Abiding in God is life. Not abiding in God is the absence of life. Thus the nature of man was originally like that of all “unfallen” beings in the universe. But through the free exercise of choice, the first humans chose to live apart from God. Rather than allow any of his created beings to reap the immediate consequences of their choice, God extended life (and continues to do so) in order to reconcile the “rebels” to himself. The fallen humanity may be selfish, but each human is instilled with a kernel of agape, which is sufficient for growth, again through free exercise of choice. This then provides a balance of nature (between selfish and selfless) and allows for external forces to influence a person. External influences are also balanced by the internal influence of God on every individual.

Q3: What is our purpose?
All creatures are called to union with God, whatever their capacity. The outward manifestation of this is agape love, freely chosen. Our purpose is to continually grow into a the likeness of God with which we were originally intended to have. AND to help others grow towards that as well.

First thoughts on “Leadership”

Have you ever thought, “what is leadership?”

I have. Often. My M.Ed is in Global Leadership and Administration. That program scratched an itch that I didn’t even know I had. But like a scab on a healing wound, the scratch is only intensifying.

I looked at a variety of programs: Organizational Psychology; Human and Organizational Systems; and the many varieties of Leadership (Organizational; Global; and Higher Education). The program I chose is just plain ol’ “Leadership”. I should add, quickly, that it is also the most customizable program at which I looked.

I discovered the program quite by accident. I was doing a google search on leadership and competencies. The Andrews’ program surface in the top 10. I looked over the page and realized I had met the program director. I called her daughter (who I also know through Adventist Virtual Learning Network) and asked her what she knew about the program. Anyhow, to make a long story shorter, met with a few of the faculty and was impressed, so I signed up.

I think one thing that “sold me” is that Shirley Freed, the program director, mentioned that leadership is about relationship and influence. The folder I received during our orientation week states “Leadership: A platform for service”.

When I look at any individual, I see the potential for a great leader. Admittedly, their actions sometimes bring me back to reality. But then, I too have that potential and my actions get in the way of “being” a leader and rising to my potential. Leadership starts with the self and extends outward: first to intimates and then to work and then to our communities.

Being a leader doesn’t suggest “greatness”; “power”; or “position”. Rather “being” suggest a method of living. Living as a “leader” suggests always seeking to know and understand one’s “self”; and seeking to know and understand others. “Being” a leader suggests being principled and disciplined; “being” a leader suggests being committed to truth that is bigger than personal perspective; being a leader suggests stewardship of life and everything in it.

We certainly see “leadership” styles. I see these as more “personality” traits than anything else. There is a larger reality – a larger truth: We are called to be more than simply who we are. We are called to grow and help others in their journey of growth.

Leadership as a platform for service isn’t automatically grandiose. Service is not being a “yes-man” to the wants of others. Service is committed to a bigger picture. Leadership isn’t simply about being in the service of profits; or environmental protection; or of universal health coverage. Leadership is in the service of life. This means that, people who are being leaders, wrestle with what is right or wrong; struggle with choices that are not clear cut; struggle with decisions that might not have been the best; struggle with helping others find their own calling. People who are being leaders are in the service of the big picture. If someone loses, everyone loses. People committed to being leaders seek NOT to win or defeat others.

When I think about leadership as “being” in this manner, the manner of serving humanity, in fact all of creation, there are precious few examples. Leadership in this method isn’t selfish, nor is it completely self-less. Leadership in this method considers it all. Being a leader in this way, there is a dance between love of self and love of others.

I am still thinking…

Welcome to my “leadership” world

Welcome! I will be blogging my experiences and insights as I work through my PhD program. Hopefully I will just write and not worry about the “what”. I sometimes get “stuck” thinking about all the “stuff” and miss opportunities to simply let things emerge.

This will be wonderful practice of patience and emergence.