Executive mentoring is a process that involves an assigned mentor teaching or coaching executives and prospective executives to develop their individual capacities. The process of executive mentoring benefits a wide range of people. Junior executives in organizations who want to improve their leadership and decision-making skills, as well as students who have executive mentoring as a requirement for obtaining a degree, are examples of such people.
An organization where individuals who may be selected for promotion are assigned to a mentor is an example of a situation that requires executive mentoring. The mentor acts as a coach or teacher to the individual in matters pertaining to the qualities of a good executive. Such lessons must include practical demonstrations in which the student or junior executive participates in some of the activities that will help him or her further develop existing skills. Allowing the junior executive to observe and learn from high-level meetings involving the company’s top directors, as well as teaching the junior executive the principles of bargaining and the process of oral persuasion and rhetoric, are examples of such activities.
When a student is the person who will benefit from executive mentoring, the mentor will be assigned to the student at the start of the required course. Over the course of the program, such a mentor will engage the student in various forms of executive mentoring. For example, the mentor could take the student on field trips where he or she can observe contract negotiations and other forms of interaction between the mentor and other local business owners. This is critical for the student, not only because it allows for skill development, but also because it allows the student to network and make potential contacts who may be useful after graduation.
Any investment in executive mentoring, which is a type of human capital investment, benefits businesses. Workers’ skills will improve, their ability to perform executive duties more effectively, and their ability to provide competent leadership to the workers they supervise will all benefit from such an investment. Executive mentoring also benefits junior executives because it teaches them how to set personal and professional short- and long-term goals in order to achieve stated objectives in their jobs or careers.