You want to be a successful mentor in Training and Development (HR). What are the key skills you need?

To be a mentor you need to think beyond performance and coaching . Being a mentor is like being a friend and help your trainee / team member in fighting situations both in personal & professional life . Have right amount of emotional intelligence.

Active Listening. By far the #1 skill you need here. Sometimes, you don't even need problem-solving skills because the person you want to help just needs to be heard. People thrive when they get to work things out with a mentor. Then, assuming you don't know everything, learn what people are great at and connect them to others seeking that skill. So, again, Active Listening.

The top 3 skills that a mentor should have: 1. Being there when required, nurturing the mentees with empathy, and being focused. Listening is the key to progress. 2. Networking: Create a positive culture with good employee engagement or experience. 3. Leadership skills: Allow the team to make mistakes and learn from them, learning paths are set for growth.

With too many things in my mind I always have a moment to focus and set myself before my meetings to listen with full attention to the people I am helping to improve. Since I work with different groups from different countries, I must empathize deeply to get enough information about the state of mind of my partners. Looking at their eyes and living their story is the best way I will recommend you can connect and coach.

To become a great mentor, first of all, the person needs to distinguish between mentoring and coaching. Mentoring is mostly dedicated to sharing the mentor's own experiences with the mentee. To do that successfully and inspire the mentee to take action, the mentor needs: 1. Be vulnerable and share not just success stories but epic failures too. 2. Respect and encourage the mentee to find and explore their own ways but still offer wisdom and support. 3. Combine empathy and kindness with accountability and tough questions. 4. Being humble and curious enough to learn something from the mentee as well.

In my experience, Mentor in Coaching skill is all about understanding how to listen actively, communicate with mentees through understanding who they are, what they value and what motivates them. This supports them to find the solutions in first place and coaches the mentee enhancing their coaching skills. 70-20-10 model is a training and development framework that suggests that mentee learn in different ways.

Caching skills are like hidden treasures that every exceptional mentor in training and development must possess. Picture this: you're a seasoned explorer, equipped with a map of knowledge and a keen eye for uncharted territories. As a mentor, your role is to guide and empower others on their learning journey. And what better way to do so than by caching your expertise? By skillfully organizing valuable information, you become a walking library of insights. Whether it's sharing practical tips or relevant case studies, your cache of knowledge becomes a bottomless well of inspiration. It's like having a secret stash of wisdom that you can sprinkle at just the right moments, igniting curiosity and fueling growth.

the ability to ask open questions, listen more than you talk and help the client create achievable desired outcomes are all coaching skills that can be used effectively in mentoring.

I always break things down into small pieces that are easy to tackle and show improvement. When a goal or project is too big it stands the chance of procrastination. Clear and concise instructions help both the mentor and mentee achieve success with less stress.

Develop coaching and mentoring skills to guide and support your mentee in their professional development journey. Provide constructive feedback, offer guidance and advice, and empower your mentee to set and achieve their goals.

Life is all about emotions and how we handle them. And emotional intelligence is what helps you read and understand all the emotional data you're receiving and sending.

Here are some skills needed m: Self-awareness: Understanding your own emotions, strengths, weaknesses, and values. Self-regulation: The ability to control or redirect disruptive emotions and impulses. Empathy: The ability to understand and share the feelings of others. Empathy enables coaches to connect with employees on a deeper level, fostering open communication and a supportive environment. Social skills: Proficiency in managing relationships and building networks. Effective coaches use their social skills to influence, engage, and inspire others. Motivation: A passion to achieve for the sake of achievement. Mentors with high emotional intelligence are often driven by an inner motivation to help others grow and succeed.

Emotional intelligence encompasses self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, and social skills. It enables mentors to understand their own emotions and those of others, manage interpersonal relationships effectively, and navigate challenging situations with empathy and diplomacy. Mentors with high emotional intelligence can establish trusting relationships with their mentees, foster a supportive learning environment, and address conflicts or emotional barriers constructively.

One thing I had read about and found profoundly helpful is the iceberg representing emotions - the top of the iceberg representing emotions and reactions that one can see and the other part of iceberg is which is largely under the surface - representing all the emotions which is neither discussed or talked about. A great mentor should be able to find the right balance to understand where is a certain reaction coming from to help navigate the mentee in the right direction! This builds a very open candid and trusting relationship between the both.

To be a successful mentor, you need to understand that those around you may have a different mode of learning, & their experiences might differ from yours. It is vitally important to have the emotional intelligence to listen non-judgementally, and to communicate observations of strengths you have watched your mentee exhibit within their role. This encourages them to continue to work from a place of deepening their current strengths, instead of focusing on what they are not doing well or are struggling with.

Leadership skills are essential for mentors to inspire, motivate, and empower their mentees to reach their full potential. This involves setting a positive example, providing guidance and direction, and promoting a culture of continuous learning and development. Mentors should demonstrate integrity, resilience, and the ability to influence and inspire others towards shared goals.

Leadership by default is an all-encompassing, inclusive and multidimensional affair. A mentor-mentee transaction and interaction are highly influenced by the mentor's leadership skills and abilities. When compassion, empathy, care, patience and tolerance accompany the skills and abilities of a leader, it creates that climate and ambience, where mentorship can and does thrive to deliver outcomes.

I personally think you do not have to be a manger. However, your it is beneficial if you skillset includes skills like providing valuable feedback, active listening and how to motivate, develop and guide /accompany people. Your mentee will oberserve you as a mentor, thus being a role model & lead (if applicable) by example will help a mentee a lot in their development (behavioral learning).

To be a successful mentor in Training and Development, focus on key leadership skills. First, build trust by consistently demonstrating integrity and transparency. The trust that you built within your team becomes essential when providing candid feedback for improvement. Inspire your team by understanding their strengths and challenges. Provide a safe space for them to make mistakes and learn. But be compassionate enough to give them feedback so that they know what they need to improve. Set clear expectations, monitor their progress, provide feedback, and actively listen to create an open and honest environment that is conducive for continuous growth and success.

Another leadership skill is to be an equitable leader. This means thinking about treating each team member individually, recognising that each team member has their own cultural value preferences that shape the way they form relationships with colleagues, value time, build trust, communicate. As a leader you should have this in mind to positively influence how you interact with the them.

I feel establishing an environment that encourages open and honest communication is essential for a successful mentorship experience. A strong mentorship is built upon a foundation of trust and mutual respect, allowing both the mentor and mentee to freely exchange ideas, thoughts, values, and perspectives. By fostering a relationship where both parties feel comfortable challenging each other, the mentorship experience becomes significantly more effective and valuable, ultimately leading to personal and professional growth for both individuals.

T&D is dependent on feedback. Feedback on an area of improvement initiates a learning intervention like mentoring. Feedback after facilitating learning intervention is necessary for checking back on whether the learning was effective or not. Feedback for the resource person provides scope for review and recognition. In a nutshell, feedback is the vertebrae for T&D.

It drives me crazy that the sandwich method would still be recommended as an appropriate approach. Follow the model other contributors have noted here and just deliver the message with empathy and care. I like the DESC model: Describe the situation (get the SOB's - specific observable behaviours. Explain the impact that behaviour is having on you or others Suggest changes to the behaviour Consequences - positive or negative if the change happens or doesnt.

Providing constructive feedback is a crucial aspect of mentoring in Training and Development. Mentors should deliver feedback in a timely, specific, and constructive manner, focusing on both strengths and areas for improvement. Effective feedback promotes self-awareness, skill enhancement, and overall growth in mentees.

Two critical elements of feedback. Be direct. Most effective when you share data, observations and impact. But more important than this is to be compassionate (sometimes you’ll hear the word ‘sensitive’ here). Examine your motives. Make sure you’re coming from a space of wanting to help. Don’t preach from the mountain top - or worse, throw the other person from the cliff. Remember your words make an impact.

Besides the skills listed here I would add authenticity, vulnerability - being ready to talk about failures, learnings, challenges one has gone through - and not just sharing the good practices and successes. The ability to talk about what hurdles an HR professional needs to jump -how to handle resistance, stay resilient (lack of resources, budget, sponsorship). So besides communication, EI, active listening, SME and/or leadership experience, influencing skills, resilience, feedback, offering guidance & advice, and the readiness to learn from the mentoring relationship through the questions, discussions. The essential tools for training and development: explaining, showing, telling etc. and keeping the mentee involved, engaged throughout.

Let’s be very clear: mentoring is different from coaching. Mentoring - is helping others evolve through sharing their knowledge, experience, skills, tools, techniques etc. Therefore storytelling, ability to translate conceptual to practical, capability to convert strategic into operational in a clear fashion, are at the core of adding value through mentorship.

In order to be a successful mentor in any field and especially Training & Development, one need to also demonstrate: 1. Reverse Mentoring Skills - The mentor must demonstrate lifelong learning mindset and learn from the mentee. 2. Questioning Skills - Ability to challenge and ask right questions at the right time to guide the mentee in right direction. 3. Networking Skills - A T&D mentor is expected to have a strong network and community of strong subject matter experts that can be of great value for the mentee.

Mentoring is the process of learning from someone else. It isn't coaching or therapy. It's about being open and honest about your experience to help your mentee see a different perspective and grow as a result. We often see mentorship as someone older mentoring someone younger, but it can be anyone sharing experience with a mentee willing to learn. Think about how race, gender, social background and help others and how your experience can help a mentee grow.

I think the mentor must be passionate about learning and development and have a genuine interest in seeing others grow through sharing their experiences. Many people tend to get into mentoring to say they have done this or that, or just to tick off a task in their growth checklist, or to boast about their accomplishments. However, if done with the right intent and mindset - that is to help others grow, in my humble opinion, it will greatly benefit the mentee and provide invaluable insight into how to overcome whatever challenge a they may encounter on their own journey.