Mentorship: Myth or Psychological Edge
The mentorship concept dated back to Greek mythology and tells the story of a relationship that was so strong that it could replace a father’s presence in the holistic upbringing of his heir and the future king. Many can debate whether this is only a myth, or whether mentorship can still be regarded as a psychological edge in organizations?
Organizations who are finding themselves in the post-covid, fourth industrial revolution era are well-aware that we need to implement optimized systems to ensure that our staff performance and engagement is dynamic beyond the four walls of the office. This dynamic will mean that we need to re-imagine our old strategies to connect with our people to keep our businesses alive in our people’s hearts, visions, imaginations and thereby ensure their productive efforts.
The question might then be, how we can re-create the mythical effect of Mentor in Homer’s Odyssey and get our people to step into their calling, take authority and take on their roles with courage, and a true enacted understanding of ownership of their positions?
In our blog series on mentorship, we want to create a platform to invite ideas and practical tools for organizations, line managers, mentors, and mentees, to share their experiences, as well as stimulate new thoughts, and even the wildest imaginations on this important concept.
According to Mythology, Odyssey’s role was not conclusive in the success of their young heir and king. The third party, the Greek goddess Athena, played a critical role in helping Telemachus to take up his rightful place as king and heir. Can we, then, just for a moment, imagine our organizations to be that third party (Greek goddess), who will utilize mythical influence to create an environment that provides support to both mentor and mentee and thereby provide the other critical key element to a wholesome mythical trio in the mentorship process.
As initiators and silent overseer of the process, organization and HR teams often need to step in when challenges in the mentor-mentee relationship arises. Pro-active management and a good structure are unconditional, but one of the critical elements that are often overlooked, is how you can support your mentors in their own journey towards self-efficacy as a mentor:
- Provide a forum for active discussions amongst your pool of mentors – so much insight can be gained if challenges, experiences, and lessons learnt are shared.
- Appreciate and support the unique approach and contribution of each mentor, as they will each have different expertise, style, tools, and focus.
- Create a safe place to build a bridge of trust and discretion between mentors and line managers to ensure an opportunity for mentors to feed forward when crucial challenges are identified.
- Focus most of your mentor equipping sessions on fresh, short, practical mentorship tools and interactions, and fewer long-winded theoretical training sessions. Your mentors are after all not studying towards a post graduate qualification in mentorship.
- Build a wall of appreciation around the mentors and mentees for their participation and support for your mentorship process.
Though they often play the behind-the-scenes role, it is important to acknowledge that mentorship processes in organizations can only be sustained where the HR or OD teams in organizations are truly committed and walk the extra mile. Like the goddess Athena, HR who keeps a loving eye on all the role players and the process and step in with grace where needed are the ultimate mentors.
A healthy and inspirational design of mentoring processes will definitely bring a psychological edge. Walk that extra mile for your colleagues, staff and company.
This blog in the series was written by Hester Verwey.
Contact our office at office@xpand-sa.com for more information on mentorship training and system design.