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Coaching for Leaders

684: How to Be a Better Mentor, with Ruth Gotian

Coaching for Leaders

Dave Stachowiak

Management, Careers, Business

4.81.6K Ratings

🗓️ 10 June 2024

⏱️ 38 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ruth Gotian: The Financial Times Guide to Mentoring

Ruth Gotian is the Chief Learning Officer and Associate Professor of Education in Anaesthesiology at Weill Cornell Medicine. She has been hailed by Nature and The Wall Street Journal as an expert in mentorship and leader­ship development. Thinkers50 has ranked her the #1 emerging management thinker in the world and she’s a top LinkedIn voice in mentoring. Ruth is the author of The Success Factor and now along with Andy Lopata, The Financial Times Guide to Mentoring*.

We’ve all heard about the benefits of mentoring. In addition to receiving mentoring, great leaders give back by providing it to others. In this episode, Ruth and I discuss what the research shows that the best mentors do well.

Key Points

  • Effective mentors use a combination of skills in coaching, sponsorship, role-modeling, and mentoring to support the situation.
  • Informal mentoring tends to be more effective than formal pairings. 61% of mentoring relationships develop organically.
  • Open up your network to your mentee. It’s an essential way to support their growth — and yours.
  • Park your ego at the door. Instead, allow your mentee to shine. With their permission, amplify their achievements.
  • Take the role of “sophisticated barbarian.” Approach mentee situations with knowledge and experience, but with distance and objectivity of their other, daily interactions.
  • Document the challenges, accomplishments, and next steps during mentoring. This helps your mentee recognize accomplishments and grow their confidence.

Resources Mentioned

Interview Notes

Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).

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Transcript

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0:00.0

We've all heard about the benefits of mentoring.

0:03.0

In addition to receiving mentoring,

0:05.0

great leaders give back by providing it to others.

0:09.0

In this episode, what the research shows

0:12.0

that the best mentors do well.

0:14.0

This is coaching for leaders episode 684.

0:19.0

Produced by Innovate Learning

0:21.0

Maximizing Human Potential.

0:24.0

Greetings to you from Orange County, California.

0:31.0

This is coaching for leaders, and I'm your host Dave Stahophiac.

0:35.6

Leaders are born, they're made, and this weekly show helps you discover

0:40.3

leadership wisdom through insightful conversations.

0:44.5

One of the conversations that almost every leader has is mentoring conversations.

0:50.0

Whether they are formal, informal, or somewhere in between. We have all heard about the power of

0:56.0

mentoring and many of us now have the privilege in our careers to be mentors to

1:01.2

others and yet it is one of those topics that almost none of us have received any kind of formal

1:07.3

training on, even if we've been involved in a formal mentoring program.

1:11.2

Today I'm so glad to welcome back a guest expert who has so much wonderful perspective

1:16.1

to share not only through her research but practice on mentoring and helping us

1:20.1

get better. I'm so pleased to welcome Ruth Gautian to the show. She is the chief

1:24.7

learning officer and associate professor of education in anesthesiology at

1:29.2

while Cornell Medicine. She has been hailed by nature and the Wall Street Journal as an expert in mentorship and leadership development.

...

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