Why invest in leadership mentoring?

When finances are stretched, the future uncertain and organisations under pressure to deliver, some might ask whether leadership mentoring is worth the investment. But these are precisely the moments when such an investment really pays off, not just for the individual but also for their team and the wider business.  

As part of our commitment to listening (which is also one of the key leadership skills we teach in our iLEAD programme), we regularly ask clients to tell us what they think of us. Our most recent listening project was very revealing about the value of our leadership mentoring services.

When we work with clients, our focus is on helping them to be the best leader they can be: to find and reveal the ‘diamond’ within. With leaders performing at their best, the ripple effect on their colleagues and their whole organisation is incredibly powerful. Furthermore, during stressful and turbulent times such as we’ve all experienced this year, by being able to share experiences through leadership mentoring we provide valuable perspective as well as an anchoring point. 

As a client recently asserted, “This is a relatively small time/money investment for a high-impact and transformative change.”

Personal development

When we start working with a client, the emphasis is on nurturing the individual’s sense of themselves, their values and purpose, and giving them practical tools for improving their way of thinking. This change of mindset is incredibly powerful:

“I have become more confident in myself and my abilities. I have learned to trust my instincts and be myself at work. I have also pushed myself forward in situations, projects and for roles that previously I would have been underconfident for.”

“I’ve moved away from believing issues and problems are unique to me and learned how to open up different avenues and perspectives to solve them. Drawing on Antony’s experience, I’m more able to appreciate other people’s behaviours and adapt my ways of thinking…and I’m working more efficiently and effectively.”

“There are so many things I have learned or re-learned. The sessions have enabled me to think about things slightly differently…and I now have a lot more faith and confidence in my ability as a leader.”

“I have the courage of my conviction, an understanding of my values and my ‘what’ and my ‘why’.  This is now helping to guide me in my decision making. I am calmer, speak more slowly, listen more (to really understand).”

Team development

The team around each individual feels the positive impact of the leadership mentoring programme too. As one of our mentees commented, we help people learn “how to carry people with [them] as a leader. How to better engage peers and teams and influence more effectively.”

As another mentee observed, “Working with you has helped me to let go of the (subconscious) belief that I needed to drive everything through my own activity and energy.  That has helped me to slow down a little, enough to see and hear other people better which has helped enormously in getting much, much better engagement from other people into what we are trying to achieve.”

Creating this understanding of the effect leaders have on others is key to changing behaviour and shifting the emphasis, and we ensure that all our guidance is bespoke and practical: “It’s tangible, tailored, and…actually really implementable in real life.”

Growing Profit and Smiles

Our over-arching purpose is to help clients grow Profit and Smiles; to create a culture of personal fulfilment, happiness and enjoyment of working which drives incredible commercial results for the wider business.

For those in our leadership mentoring programmes, this can also mean significant personal success too. Our clients achieve promotions, expand their remit, renegotiate their packages and land their dream jobs with our support. Many of them also report incredible financial rewards, with an average 103% salary increase according to our recent survey.

We absolutely love what we do and feel privileged to work with our clients. If you’re still weighing up the benefits of leadership mentoring, we’ll leave it to one of them to sum up:

“What you do is not just to support or guide, it is to inspire. You listen. You challenge people to draw out and understand on a conscious level their motivation, purpose and values. In doing this, you inspire people to become more effective leaders, enabling them to achieve greatness. By achieving personal greatness, your effectiveness in an organisation increases exponentially and in turn drives the performance of your team.”

If you’d like to talk, please get in touch.