Category Archives for Mentoring
Launch of the WISE Mentoring Program
The WISE mentoring program intends to help our members reach their potential – both personally and professionally – in their behaviours, industry knowledge and skills.
We are currently looking for both mentees and leaders of our industry to become mentors in this program. The 2017 Program will consist of three components and will be launched in July and run for 12 months.
The program has 3 facets -
1. Mentoring professionals/Young professionals/Students
Do you want to move your career forward? Would you like to develop skills as well as help others learn, grow and improve their skills? Or would you like to find someone who can help you do these things? You can …… through our WISE mentoring partnership. Become a mentor or mentee: a mentoring partnership can be rewarding to both people, personally and professionally. It is an opportunity to develop communication skills, expand your viewpoints and consider new ways of approaching situations. And both partner can advance their careers in the process!
2. Personal Development for Young Professionals
A series of tailored workshops and lectures; including the following topics:
- Leadership
- Teamwork
- Personal Branding
- Managing Conflict
- Negotiating
- Goal setting
- Procrastination
3. Personal Development for Students
A series of tailored workshops and lectures based on feedback received from the university chapters and likely to include the following topics:
- Effective CV’s
- Networking
- Interviewing
- Teamwork
- Presentation skills
View the full program guidelines.
GET INVOLVED
Mentoring is one of the foundations of the development of individuals both professionally and personally. The process enriches both the mentor and the mentee and often forms rewarding long lasting bonds and relationships.
The contribution from a mentor can have an enormous impact on the development of less experienced professionals and by extension create a legacy to our industry.While the reasons may vary, most professionals will find need for a mentor at many stages throughout their career.
Mentees seeking career and related personal development advice benefit by accessing not only their mentor but also their wider network. This can be an invaluable resource to help provide both direction and focus to your development within the industry. Our program will pair you with the most appropriate mentor to fulfil your career development needs and we look forward to your enrolment in this year’s program.
Creating tomorrow’s Leaders
We are so excited to start our WISE mentoring program next month. The program intends to provide professional members and students with a significant industry leadership edge and aims to harness the wisdom contained in our Membership to provide support for emerging and existing leaders; and importantly it provides a platform for a successful future for our Industry.
So, what is mentoring? ....
Mentoring is intended to be a one-to-one relationship by means of which the mentor invests their time, knowledge and efforts to help the Mentee reach all their potential as a person and as a professional in their behaviours, knowledge and skills. Mentoring is a very old formula of human development whose origins lie in the Stone Age, when the artists who painted on cave-walls, the stone carvers, the medicasters who used medicinal herbs to heal sickness and others instructed the youths of their clan, in order to transmit their knowledge, thereby contributing to the evolution of civilization.
Mentoring owes its name to Greek Mythology. Mentor was Ulysses’ close friend, the protagonist of Homer’s Odyessy. Before setting off to Troy, Ulysses bade Mentor to take care of his son Telemachus and to prepare him to succeed him as the king of Ithaca. Mentor had to be like a father, a master, a model and reliable counsellor and challenge-stimulating instructor, so that Telemachus could become a wise, truthful and prudent king.
Mentoring is becoming very common in Australia. It has gone through a process of transformation as a consequence of the changes that the business world has undergone from the industrial age to the age of knowledge.
In the industrial age, the mentoring model was orientated towards the achievement of higher position in the hierarchical scale; in the age of knowledge, this orientation is turning towards the development of the individual's inner power, which originates in mental ability, persuasion, vision, creativity, capacity to solve problems, passion for the results of business activity, capacity to create teams, which turns high potential professionals into managers who contribute effectively to the growth of the business. The majority of companies in every economic sector have got flatter and leaner structures. Organisations are demanding continuously growing profits, higher quality products and services, capacity to compete in a more open and globalised market, capacity for creation and innovation in a technology changing environment, etc. Therefore, leaders and managers must perform more broad and versatile roles like the creation of new vision, the development of strategies, the direct involvement in operational issues, team building and leadership etc.... We believe this Mentor Program is an enabler in that process.
Mentoring that builds Leadership
Great leadership requires great influence. Great leaders are not born with a genetic code that dictates great leadership, nor are they self-made into great leaders. A study of any honourable effective leader will show that along the way of their development, they received many influences from relationships and events that they experienced. Emerging leaders use great influence to help them become great leaders.
The current leaders within our membership are considered as a source of great influence. Mentoring is a vehicle that taps into this great influence to build and support the current and future generation of leaders in our industry. Mentoring that builds leadership however, must be based upon an understanding of how leadership development takes place.
Studies of great leaders have shown 3 common experiences from which these great leaders learned how to lead:
- Trial & Error
- Observation of Others
- Education
These 3 leadership learning experiences suggest 3 services that mentors can provide for the development of emerging leaders!
I am looking forward to sharing more with you about our upcoming mentoring program, watch this space!
Frances Eaton
Executive Officer
Subsea Energy Australia
SEA's Executive Officer, Frances Eaton, joined SEA three months ago. She brings with her a wealth of experience around coaching executives, managers and cross-functional groups, her passion is about developing the leadership qualities of those around her. Connect with her via LinkedIn
The five common traits of life-changing mentors
SEA's Executive Officer, Frances Eaton, joined SEA just two months ago. She brings with her a wealth of experience around coaching executives, managers and cross-functional groups, her passion is about developing the leadership qualities of those around her. Below she shares with us some of her insights on what it takes to be a great mentor.
Have you ever had a life changing moment when someone did or said something that completely changed your perception about life?
I had one a couple of years ago while I was sipping a steaming hot coffee in my mentor’s office. I asked my mentor how she dealt with unexpected life and business challenges and she said:
“You can’t control what happens in life but you can control how you look at it. Change your perception and you change your life.”
I still think of that advice every time I’m going through challenges (or as she calls them, life lessons).
Perhaps you’ve felt a similar shift when a kind stranger said something inspiring to you in passing that made you realise things could be different? Or you heard a brave speaker talk about their emotionally gruelling battles which made you realise you could beat your own!
We’ve all likely felt a shift in our lives from encountering people who’ve helped lift us up. It’s very likely they have the following traits in common:
1. They Focus On Service
Mentors focus on the statement “How Can I Help?” They have a genuine passion for helping others largely because they want to give back to the community and also helping others makes them feel great.
When people focus their attention on someone else’s wellbeing, it actually reduces their own stress levels. Giving back can also make people feel like they have a deeper purpose in life making them feel happier. Everyone wins with mentorship.
2. They Believe In Abundance
A mentor once told me: “Never believe in lack. There’s enough abundance in business for everyone”. Smart mentors understand that sharing knowledge and contacts doesn’t take anything away from them. In fact, realistically, the more they share, the more likely they are to receive.
For example, think of the last time a person you met helped you in business. Wouldn’t you be more likely to help this person in return compared to someone who didn’t help you?
3. They See Your Strengths
An inspiring mentor focuses on your strengths, not your weaknesses. If you focus on your strengths, you are more likely to feel happy because you feel competent you can carry out tasks.
For example if your strengths lie in writing but not in accounting, your mentor may suggest that you continue writing in your business blog, but leave the accounting to an expert. Focusing on your strengths is likely to boost your confidence helping your business.
4. They Feel Complete
Life changing mentors see themselves as complete and don’t expect anything from you in return for their help. (Although they will graciously receive your help if you offer.) Why is this great? Well, as you may have experienced in life or business, giving with expectation feels pretty awful for both people involved.
Conversely, those that give without expectation tend to serendipitously meet the right people at the right time and have a huge amount of luck because of their positive and helpful attitudes – a pretty cool side effect from a not-so-common state of being.
5. They Are Charismatic
Have you ever noticed inspiring mentors are usually interesting and engaging people? It’s likely they have many intriguing life stories involving challenges and struggles they’ve overcome to make them the people they are today.
Don’t believe me? The next time you are in a meeting with a coach or mentor, gently ask them about their history. It’s likely they’ll have a lot of interesting stories to share that you would never have imagined…
Be the mentor you want to see in the world!
So there you have it! Those are the five common traits of life-changing mentors. If you looked at some of these traits and thought, wow that’s me, or if you’ve been searching for ways to give back to our Industry than watch this space!