Mentoring CEOs and Top Executives [Grant Thornton] Monday 02/20/06 12:22 PM
Mentoring plays a vital role in training CEO's for many companies. According to a recent survey of 300 business executives, 69% say they have mentors and 66% say they are themselves a mentor.
Some of the forms mentoring can take include peers sharing their experiences and learning from each other's past successes and failures. A crucial distinction between mentoring and other forms of training is that mentoring transfers knowledge based on experience, from someone that has practiced the desired knowledge or skill.
Mike Apperson, President and CEO of American Fibers and Yarns describes mentoring as "the only approach where business professionals can learn from the mistakes and successes of others. Throughout your business life, you will meet others who have walked down a road you havent yet traveled. By learning from their experience, your journey will have fewer potholes."
How do executives find people to be their mentors? Often the top executives create a network of people with varied experience to advise and act as a sounding board.
An obvious benefit to the mentee is learning a valuable skill from a seasoned expert. A less obvious benefit is the less formal environment of a mentoring relationship along with the one on one aspect tend to instill more confidence than other methods of knowledge transfer.
An often overlooked benefit to the mentor is the amount of re-learning and honing of your own skills as you prepare for and proceed to mentor your protege.
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