Copyright 2013- | Marcus van Wyk | All Rights Reserved
Mentorship is a personal development relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps to guide a less experienced or less knowledgeable person. The mentor may be older or younger, but have a certain area of expertise.
However, to be an exemplary mentor, it is important to recognise the individuality of the mentee in terms of their personality, thinking style, behavioural traits, and occupational interests. Mentorship is helping people forge clarity and direction that will shape durable value in and for them. Mentorship not only allows the shape of value for the mentee but also ensures effective skill improvement for the Mentor. It is a great win-win.
More often than not, for mentorship to be kinetic, it requires insight into the mentee that avoids personal bias or prejudice. It is an insight that gives an understanding of the inner life functions of the mentee. Good insight offers wisdom to maintain a sense of reality and purpose with the mentee. We can refer to this insight as ‘the iceberg under the water,’ which makes up 90% of the person we do not see or understand. What we do not see is more important than what we can see in the mentee.
Mentoring people is for improving performance in the present and preparation for the future in whatever role. Mentoring is then the act of influencing, teaching, supporting, observing, and ultimately guiding the mentee to success.
The best way to gain insight is undoubtedly through the use of psychometric assessments. There are two types of assessments, namely ipsative (Personality, motivational type) and Normative (Performance model type, where measurement is against a particular job benchmark).
The type of mentorship drives the choice of assessment.
Future Roles
If we have identified people for future roles, particularly leadership roles, the recommendation is a normative assessment because it can measure people against required existing standards of performance in terms of thinking styles, behavioural traits and occupational interests.
Present Roles
If people are to be developed in their present roles, then the recommendation is an Ipsative assessment, but not limited only to this type of assessment. However, the Ipsative assessment helps you understand a person’s behavioural characteristics so you can use this knowledge to increase performance and boost their morale and productivity.
Contact Marcus for more information regarding the application of assessments in mentorships.
Copyright 2013- | Marcus van Wyk | All Rights Reserved