I wrote about the recent findings that are contained in the Deloitte report entitled Global Human Capital Trends 2015 (http://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/human-capital/articles/introduction-human-capital-trends.html) and shared with you the top three challenges that organizations will face globally. They were culture and engagement, leadership and learning and development. What was frightening was that leadership had actually digressed rather than improving which demonstrated that we do not have a good handle on how to deal with it. I suggested at that time that mentoring was a means to assist in the development of leaders and that mentoring should be part of any leadership development program that you may have in place. Chances are that with leadership digressing from where it was in 2014 we more than likely do not have mentoring as part of a leadership development program. We likely have not addressed leadership development!
Fast forward to today and a recent article that was shared with me that shows that the leadership or lack thereof dilemma is not going away and it has huge impacts on productivity in the organization as well as the culture. I will provide you with the link to the article and I encourage you to listen to the video clip as it has a strong message as well (https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/blogs/balance-sheet/workers-dont-like-their-jobs-and-managers-arent-180814411.html).
How bad is it? Only 18% of current managers have the talent required for their roles according to a new survey that was done by Gallup. Gallup has found that only 30% of employees are engaged. For managers 35% are engaged, 51% are not engaged and 14% are actively disengaged. When you look at this it is no wonder that leadership in most organizations is in such a state of disarray. Disengagement can sometimes come from complacency where managers are more inclined to wait to be told what to do rather than taking the initiative and making decisions. Gallup advised that managers are responsible for 70% of the variances in employee engagement surveys. This should come as no surprise though as we have seen in the past that one of the top reasons employees leave an organization is because of the leadership or lack thereof. The price tag in the United States for bad management is $319B to $398B.
How do we move forward and address these challenge before it gets any worse. Selection of managers that have the right attributes is one. The article suggests that those attributes would include: motivating employees, overcoming obstacles, creating a culture of accountability, building trusted relationships, and making informed, unbiased decisions. Communication is foundational to make all of this work.
Effective mentoring is about building trusted relationships and communicating effectively. It is about learning to manage conversations rather than lock, loading and firing without thinking your way through what the outcomes might be or how that information will be received. As a manager it is about building those relationships so that both parties are comfortable in communicating. It is about building that safe environment where I can grow personally and professional without fear of retribution. Effective mentors are something that most organizations do not have today and going forward are something that they cannot be without. Any manager/leader should be afforded the opportunity to take some form of mentor training in order to develop the skills that we have just talked about. If we don’t take this step where will we be in a year from now? Can we afford not to?

References:

1. http://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/human-capital/articles/introduction-human-capital-trends.html
2. https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/blogs/balance-sheet/workers-dont-like-their-jobs-and-managers-arent-180814411.html