The Best Lessons Managers Can Learn From Their Career Mentors

When you become a manager, you’re suddenly responsible for facilitating the training and career development of those who work under you. Being in this position does not, however, mean that your own career development is done. In fact, you should maintain your relationship with your career mentor or consider seeking out a mentor if you don’t have one already.

Having a mentor as a manager is important as you learn how to manage and motivate people effectively, and there are a lot of important things a mentor can teach you. In fact, here are a few of the best lessons managers can learn from their career mentors:

• How to give effective praise: Recognizing the contributions of staff members can help you to keep employee motivation high so you can reduce turnover. By learning how to be effective in your praise, you can also help with your own employee’s development so you build the strongest possible team.
• How to delegate: Delegating is an essential part of being a good manager, but it is still challenging for many. Knowing how to delegate effectively not only involves learning how to decide who to hand off work to and how to set deadlines and provide instructions – it also involves learning how to place trust in those you have handed off work to so you don’t micromanage and so your staff can flourish. This can be one of the most important but difficult skills to master.
• How to handle conflict in a positive way: It is inevitable disagreements and conflicts will arise. The way in which you handle those conflicts will have a profound impact on whether disagreements end up strengthening relationships and producing better results or end up creating a toxic work environment. You need to learn how to guide your staff to be able to come together to resolve issues in a way that is most beneficial to the organization and to enhancing team unity.

Hamilton-Ryker can help managers to find skilled staff members to work for them and can provide assistance to companies in hiring managers who’ve learned a lot through mentorship and other career development opportunities. To find out more about the ways in which our staffing service can help, give us a call today.