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Dang, sorry I meant to comment on the post!
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Any good cornhole leagues around?
Always painfully funny lol
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It may all in the delivery. I think it is admirable that you are this invested in how you are coming across.it is rare.
Where we’re at the start of my career.
Do you get feedback about sounding like your giving orders, or mentees not being comfortable with you? I agree in what the other person says, it may be all in the delivery. I feel like once there is a foundation of trust and mutual agreed upon rules of engagement, those help set the tone of the relationship. My main rule is safe harbor, the conversations we have will be confidential. Even though I may be a higher level, I try to treat them as a peer and be the mentor I needed when I was early career.
Thanks for sharing this! I haven't gotten feedback about being bossy as such but something about their facial expressions and the way they receive it seems to me that they're not too pleased. I just don't understand this generation, in general.
From a grammatical perspective, a sentence sounds like an order when one uses verbs in the imperative mood (“Do this” “Don’t do that” “Look here” “Listen to me”, etc)
If you’re stating facts to describe a process, it’s quite literally not an order or command that _might offend_ someone. (“New initiatives begin with a formal proposal submitted through our project management software, undergo review by a dedicated committee for feasibility and alignment with company goals, and, once approved, are assigned to a project lead who oversees planning, resource allocation, and milestone tracking until completion.”)
For mentees to feel comfortable and ask questions, might it be enough to do frequent pauses to check if they have questions? Or if they, with their fresh pair of eyes, have ideas how something can be improved? I.e. engage them in a way that feels like a peer-to-peer conversation…
Anytime! I’m happy to hear this was helpful! 😍
It comes down to how “new” the mentees are. If they are in the first 6 months of the role, it could easily be taking everything as an order. The mentor is seen as the authority on the subject.
The other thing is really understanding what mentoring is about. How to be a mentor, how to be a mentee.
I still haven’t really understood it myself. And based on what I have been reading about folks under 30, I’m guessing it really hasn’t be shown.
There was a story I heard about how a volunteer was supposed to clean the church sanctuary. She told the preacher’s wife she completed the cleaning. The preacher’s wife saw the dirty tissues, papers In disarray, etc. The preacher’s wife started talking with the volunteer about their kids in sports while finishing up the cleaning. By the end of the conversation, the sanctuary was ready for the next service. The next week the volunteer cleaned the sanctuary to the level of what it looked like after the pastor’s wife finished the week before.
The same applies to mentoring. Your team might need to see what mentoring looks like from both the mentor and mentee view in order for both sides to really get the best results.
This is an amazing POV. Thanks so much for sharing. Makes me excited to go back to work tomorrow and I never feel that way on a Sunday night.