HELPING OTHERS GROW:Being a Nurturing, Positive Person, A list of mentoring behaviour, Coaching skills and techniques

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Human Relations MGMT611

Lesson 42

HELPING OTHERS GROW

Helping Others Grow

Helping others grow strengthens the human relationships. When you help others, you help yourself as well.

When you pave the way for others, others will have positive feelings for you. They will give you respect and

you will see that your relationships with others are improving. As a matter of fact you enrich your own life

by being helpful to others.

Being a Nurturing, Positive Person

A mentor is characterized with the ability of the future vision to guide and lead people towards the

achievement of their goals and objectives.

Sinha (1980) developed the concept of `nurturant task leader', he describes it as ...a nurturant and

benevolent guide who cares for his subordinates and takes a personal interest in their well being and

growth. He in fact helps them grow and mature so that they may assume greater responsibilities and may be

competent to participate in decision-making. The nurturant task leader believes that it is through the task

system that a meaningful, trusting and growth oriented inter-relationship may be developed in an

organizational setting.

One can be a positive nurturing person by following these rules.

1. Understand that most people have needs of growth. There is hardly anyone who doesn't want

promotion in life. Suppose if a person is employed as a clerk, it doesn't mean that he always have to

live with that status. If you help him in improving his status he will have nice feelings for you.

2. Make a team with a coworker to form a network. If you are able to form a team, you can be more

helpful to others. Networks play an important role in the personal and organizational development

and growth.

3. Be a role model for others. When you demonstrate how to be a good worker, others would like to

follow you.

A list of mentoring behaviour

If you ensure some basic roles and responsibilities of a mentor, you will see the improved quality of

relationships between the mentor and the mentee. Let us see, how you can be helpful to others by guiding

and leading them towards their growth.

1. Sponsor. Sponsor others to help and assist them in getting jobs.

2. Do coaching. Provide guidance and coaching based on your past experiences.

3. Protect others. Everyone commits mistakes. If you protect others from the bad consequences of

their mistakes, you will perform the job of a mentor.

4. Share challenging tasks. If you share some challenging task with your coworkers, it will be

helpful in building confidence in them.

5. Act as a referral agent. If somebody needs your reference, be sincere and honest in telling the

positive characteristics. And also you can refer your mentee to the one who can guide him in a

better way than you can.

6. Become a Role model. Demonstrate through your behaviour what you expect from your mentee.

7. Giving support and encouragement. People always need support and encouragement. You can

do it by a number of ways. Some nice words can work wonders.

8. Do counseling. Develop a positive counseling relationship with your mentee.

9. Providing friendship. Friendly relationships give mental and psychological support which plays

many a time vital role in the development of a person.

10. Encourage problem solving. Be helpful by identifying and solving problems.

11. Explain complexities. Life is becoming more and more complex. If you are better informed and

others are confused about a particular situation. Try to solve the complexities of life.

12. Teaching the right skills. Make others learn how to be successful. Impart right and proper

knowledge and skill to your mentees.

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13. Encourage continuous learning. Changes are occurring all the time. Encourage your mentees to

learn new skills and keep your knowledge up to date.

Coaching skills and techniques

Mentoring in the workplace is much talked about these days. How can we be a part of this process? Here

are certain techniques and skills.

1. Provide specific (or behavioral) feedback. Giving feedback on technical and behavioral skills is

necessary in the learning process.

2. Criticism may not be pinching and should be positive. Always offer constructive criticism. Negative

criticism is harmful.

3. Encourage the person to speak. Share your strengths and weaknesses with your mentee. It will

encourage him/her to communicate his/her thinking.

4. Ask useful and tough questions. Relevant questions about the problems and their solutions will

develop the ability to think about the solutions of the problems.

5. Provide emotional support. Being friendly and supportive in learning process is very useful.

6. Provide constructive advice. Be a part of the others growth by giving a sincere piece of advice.

7. Use "could" rather than "should." Do not be authoritative, let others take decisions.

8. Interpret what is happening. If you are well informed and your interpretation proves to be right,

you will develop trust among people.

9. Allow for modeling the desired performance. If others have better ideas, let them do it on their

own way.

Principles of training

If others admire your knowledge and technical skills, you feel satisfied. You can also be helpful to others in

making them learn certain skills.

1. Encourage concentration and make people focus. You can tell others how to focus and what to

focus.

2. Use motivated interest (passion). If you make people motivated they may excel in any field of their

interest.

3. Learn how to remember. People usually forget. It is very important to learn the technique of

remembering things.

4. Ensure the meaningfulness of learning materials. Make sure that the notes and audio visuals are

helpful in learning.

5. Give feedback on progress. Give periodic feedback on the lessons in constructive way.

6. Ask the trainee to reflect on what was learned. While you give feedback to others, ask for feedback

for yourself as well.

7. Deal with trainee defensiveness. People usually resist new ways of doing things.

8. Use various learning styles (e.g. some people learning better in groups). Different people feel

comfortable in different ways of learning. Some people like group learning, some like individual

learning. Some like formal learning and some informal.

Tactics for Dealing with Difficult People

Dealing with difficult people is an art. Almost everyone has to face with difficult people in one form or the

other. How to deal with difficult people at work place depends on your abilities. Here are a few tips to deal

with difficult people.

1. Give ample feedback. Don't be hostile or adverse. Constructive feedback improves the

relationships.

2. Criticize constructively. Positive criticism will help others improve their behaviour.

3. Help the difficult person feel more confident.

4. Use tact and diplomacy. If you are dealing with him/her tactfully, he/she would not remain that

much difficult for you.

5. Use non-hostile humour. Do not take his/her undesirable attitude seriously. If you use humour

and jokes in dealing with difficult people. It will decrease the tension.

6. Reinforce civil behaviour and good moods. Be positive and civilized with others. You will

become better worker and person if you learn to reinforce civil behaviour.

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Remember, it is always desirable to help others grow.

References:

Dubrin, A.J. (2005). Human Relations: Career and Personal Success. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey,

07458.

http://www.quoteland.com/author.asp

Sinha, J.B.P. (1980). The Nurturing Task Leader: A model of the effective executive. New Delhi: Concept

Publishing Co.

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