The dynamics of mentor mentee relationship is one of trust and confidence.
Building trustful mentorship requires genuine love to help guide people for the better.
Besides the required skills and expertise, mentors having an inclusive, expansive and holistic approach while helping unique pathways for clients, adds to their repertoire to create trustful mentorship .
Clarity and integrity in communication & behaviour , excellent interpersonal skills and empathic attitude add value beyond the experience and expertise of the mentors.
It is important to acknowledge the influence a mentor can have on the mentees decisions be it at work or personal life.
Hence, a good understanding of ethics while handling conflicting opinions biases, & emotional triggers helps empower the mentee than exploit them.
After all, a mentor is someone who guides advice and supports along the way…
She hadn’t been to school for four days because she was not feeling well.
When she went back to school, there were a lot of lessons taught.
To catch up on the lessons, she asked her best friend for her notes.
But her friend refused to give her the notes, saying she had to study them that evening.
Feeling dejected, she couldn’t get the notes copied.
Another girl came to her aid and gave her the notes, helping her out.
The girl was heartbroken that her best friend didn’t help her. She remembered all the times she had given chocolates and colored pencils to her friend.
Reflecting on this, she felt extremely sad and cried, becoming obsessed with the thought.
“Obsessed” means thinking about something repeatedly. She couldn’t stop thinking about her friend not giving her the notes.
She couldn’t eat lunch properly, came home, and sat quietly.
She couldn’t talk properly, watch TV, or laugh. She couldn’t sleep that night, thinking about it all the time. The next day was a school holiday, but she couldn’t enjoy it.
That day, her family went to a park. Her father put her on a swing and started pushing her. The swing went higher and higher, making her happy. She screamed joyfully, asking her dad not to push too hard. Her dad kept pushing, and after half an hour on the swing, she got down and played more games.
She forgot her anger and sadness towards her friend, feeling at peace.
That night, while sleeping, she reflected on the following points:
Point 1: It was wrong of her friend not to give her the notes. Why should she lose her happiness, appetite, and laughter over it?
Point 2: Maybe her friend genuinely needed to study and couldn’t give her the notes.
Point 3: Being angry at her friend made her distance herself from her loving parents.
Point 4: Constantly thinking about anger and irritation towards someone is torturous. It prevents us from doing anything else.
Point 5: Why didn’t she try to forget her anger for even five minutes? She felt excited while on the swing and forgot her anger. Why didn’t she think about getting out of the problem?
Reflecting on these points, she reached a conclusion.
Thinking negatively about anyone all the time will prevent you from being at peace. It drains our energy and makes us unable to enjoy life. Therefore, she decided to stay friendly and cheerful.
She woke up energetically, greeted her parents, took a bath and wore her uniform, ate her breakfast, packed her bag, and as she stepped out, sunlight shone on her face.
Her face looked brighter and more beautiful in the sunlight.
When our thoughts are good, our actions will be good. When our actions are good, our life will be good.
Empathic leaders find it easier to understand the challenges of their teams but they also need to be empathic to themselves to avoid burnout and manage their lives.
Stress Management for Leaders
If you are feeling stress beyond a level you can handle as a leader you need to introspect.
There could be many factors that build up the stress often without your own knowing. It can happen to anyone after all we are only human. And it would be good to acknowledge the importance of work life balance and self care.
Are you biting more than you can chew? To manage work stress as a leader, while delegating work check, if you are delegating tasks with clarity to the team.
Are you approachable and exercising patience in communication?
Are you checking if they have understood your requirements?
Are your mails, messages and your attitude, building people up?
Remember the way you chose to behave rubs off on people. While it’s only human to err and there could be good & bad days, being a leader is a responsiblity. For you have the power to influence and impact lives.
Likewise your actions beliefs and behaviour can affect your own health. Hence managing your own stressors empathically become paramount as a leader to get work done.
Every now and then tweaking your own approach, to the changing needs, being flexible and adaptable helps you and your team towards reducing work stress.
When you are in a position of influence especially as a coach, a trainer you are responsible to aid the development and building up of life. From the life coaching perspective there are many humane standards that help reach the set goals.
As a coach, respect and inclusion are significant for the success of your coaching. It is important to show ‘Respect’ not only for individual or team you are coaching by being unbiased and empathic of their abilities, but also for your time and effort as well as respect for the reason and need for coaching .
As for inclusiveness, without it you cannot build rapport as a coach. Inclusion is also about being attentive and open minded of diverse perspectives and opinions.
Over the decades, coaching individuals and groups as a Dance Educator & Trainer,and a Life Coach, I have had varied experiences of how being inclusive, empathic, open minded to listen and understand, sharing mutual respect has made a positive impact on the coaching process.
Both respect and inclusion can make a meaningful and lasting difference in the lives of those you coach.
Savvy Raj 
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