Introduction Of Leadership And Mentoring Nursing Essay

Leading is mean by setting direction and ensuring that direction is followed. Leading can apply to leading oneself, other individuals, groups, organizations and societies. “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader” (John, 2007). Mentoring is processes of helpful, personal, mutual relationship are built while focusing on achievement; emotional support is a key element. “Mentors are people who, through their action and work, help others to achieve their potential.” (Shea, 1992)

Definition of Leadership

Leadership is the art of motivating a group of people to act towards achieving a common goal and directs the organization in a way that makes it more cohesive and coherent. A good leader defines as to develop through a never ending process of self-study, education, training, and experience (Jago, 1982). According Warren Bennis’ definition of leadership is focused much more on the individual capability of the leader: “Leadership is a function of knowing yourself, having a vision that is well communicated, building trust among colleagues, and taking effective action to realize your own leadership potential.” (Bennis, 2009)

1.1 Definition of Mentoring

Mentoring is an experienced person for the purpose of helping the one with less experience. The mentee seeks the advice and support of the more experienced person. Mentors are concerning about the tasks that their mentee need to succeed to reaching their goals. The mentor provides knowledge, guidance and counseling as mentees to advance their lives, careers or education (Cicely, 1996). “Mentoring is a long term relationship that meets a development need, helps develop full potential, and benefits all partners, mentor, mentee and the organisation”. (Suzanne,1998)

1.2 Characteristic of Leader

The characteristic of a leader is trustworthy. True is essential to developing relationship and guide with other followers. The trustworthy compose four attributes which are credible, reliable, intimate and self orientation. (Charles, 2008) Credibility is defined as “the quality or power of inspiring belief”, which mean that the leader should integrity and honesty the followers. According authors James Kouzes and Barry Posner survey show that over 75,000 people admire the credible leader (Mike, 2005). Besides that, confidence is important for a leader. A leader must confidence in his role and believes in their own abilities to take their own decision making. The team members will be motivated to do a good job when the leader is confidence in his power. Clear vision is another characteristic of leadership in a group needs. The leader is clear that what he wants and clarity of vision is imperative to ensure that the organization is moving in the right direction. Other than that, respect can help to create a culture of partnership and teamwork. Respect should not be restricted only from the followers to the leader, it needs to be mutual. All the members should be respected each other and follow the team undoubtedly. This could be a vital characteristic of a strong leader. Lastly, emotionally stable is overcome the frustration and stress are challenges every problem. Take your psychological maturity to the next level by having a leadership mentality embedded in your mind. You always need to be prepared and able to deal with stressful situations that come your way. “Emotional stability at home is the greatest predictor of academic success.” (John Medina, 2010)

1.3 Characteristic of Mentoring

A good mentoring is provides to new employees that will share their professional knowledge and expertise in the organization. A good mentor is available to answer any questions relevant to the job. “Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction”. (John Crosby, 2009) Firstly, mentor should be having good learning attitude in individuals who are able to demonstrate positive attitude and who see the potential benefits of a mentoring relationship. Patience is defined as the ability endures waiting, without any annoyed and calmly when faces with difficult problem. A mentor having patience to show someone how to do something the right way is very important. Being a good mentor gives mentee the opportunity to achieve personal growth and gain more self confidence. Mentor should willingness to share skills, knowledge, and expertise to mentee. A good mentor is willing to teach their mentee where they currently are in their professional development. The mentor does not take the mentoring relationship lightly and understands that good mentoring requires time and commitment and is willing to continually share information and their ongoing support with the mentee. However, share life experiences are part of important to mentor. Life is not always a smooth path and getting advice from older who has overcome hurdles in their life can always inspire you and give you greater courage. A character builder is defined as the mentee with an honest assessment of his or her strengths and weaknesses and helping the mentee acquire the confidence to function in the competitive world. “Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind.” (Samuel, 2010)

1.4 Benefits of Leadership of Mentoring

Leadership is one of the most influential elements of organizations and businesses. Hence, a lot of the benefits are easier to demonstrate tangibly and impact the organization bottom line. First of all, an effective leaders are able to guide their team minimize obstacles. This mean that team members are empowered to succeed and will be increases productivity in the result. Moreover, a successful organization must have clear vision. Mean that, leader should provide better vision to their team member, such as creating a solid of actionable goals which can lead to success. The other benefits of a leader are keep motivated their team member; this mean that to avoiding the cost of recruiting and training new staff. Leader should limit employee turnover for their organization as his/her benefits. By the way, leader need to keep fosters new ideas to the organization. An effective leader will make the comfortable to share new ideas, and allowing their team member to study those ideas in detail. It does can help the organization dynamic and ever evolving. Lastly, leaders are well trained will have a high impact on the environment and create a positive effect, it’s will boost morale for their team work. (Jones, P.B. 2008)

Besides that, mentoring is something can benefit everyone; it can help the mentee develop and advance through their career. The mentor can gain extra skills and knowledge from their partnership. The benefits of mentor are discovery of talent to an organization, which mean that discover team member personal growth challenges, and find out the best of the team member. It is important to offer optimal opportunities to our talented employees, so they can develop their full potential. However, building a learning organization is also a benefit of mentor, mean that allows people to make mistakes. The best organization learning is occurs right after employees make a huge mistake, it’s a culture of ‘learning from mistake’ (Bersin, 2007). As a mentor provides an avenue for employees to find resources and answer to the problem, mentor should empower employees to resolve their problem; it is reduce frustration for team member. In an active care about the quality of their organization are more profitable. It should make sure that everyone is following the mentor internal process; insure that the team member is taught the right way. (Derming, 2003) Mentor provide an effective way to a career growth path to their tram member, which mean that growing their team member became senior position is an effective way to reduce hiring and turnover costs.

1.5 Leadership Roles and Responsibilities

A good leader role is empowering people which mean that delegate authority and has trust in the creativity of others. Besides that, give permission group decision, it will help the team become more self- assessment. Leader should practice what he/she preach, set an example and share the risks or hardship for lead by example to mentee. As a great leader in an organization you must accept greater responsibilities to carry out the vision of the organization. Leader must develop these responsibilities on problem solving abilities when facing problem. The major responsibilities a leader must develop and continue to improve to grow throughout their organization which are set and achieve business goals. Leader must be clear about their goals and trying to accomplish, be specific and they must be written and measurable. It is of leader task to see the future and set the goal and mission for the organization. One of other responsibilities of a great leader is innovating and markets bring in customer and sales. Leaders have to be constantly thinking of new ways to market and improve your business to bring in more sales and revenue and must always continue to innovate, look for newer faster, better, cheaper and more efficient ways to attract new customers. (Robert, 2007)

1.6 Mentor Role and Responsibilities

As a mentor, your primary role is to provide guidance and support to your mentee based on his or her unique developmental needs. Mentor should establish a positive personal relationship with mentee which mean that establish mutual trust and respect, maintain regular interaction, consistent support; and make your meetings enjoyable and fun. Moreover, mentor can help mentee develop life skills such as s decision making, values clarification and long-range planning. Through these skills, the young person can gain economic independence and personal empowerment. By the way, assist mentee to obtaining additional resources; mean that resources to help mentee enhance personal development and career growth. Mentor can provide awareness of community, educational and economic resources available to mentee, and how to access these resources. Mentor avoid to act as a professional case manager, view the role of a mentor as a friend rather than a counsellor.”It is the third most powerful relationship for influencing human behaviour if it is working.” (Richard, 1997) As for responsibilities of a great mentor is let trainees make their own decisions which mean that the mentor provided advice, help, and encouragement. The trainee should not be bound to follow suggestions made by the mentor. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the trainee to act based on his or her own values, goals, and experience. Lastly is always learning about effective mentoring which mean that the mentor should strive to continue learning about effective mentoring, through experience and through the available resources on mentoring. (Penny, 2012)

1.7 Leadership Traits and Principles

Trait is an element of personality that is relatively stable throughout the lifespan and across contexts. The traits of a good leader should have consists of fair-minded that is show fair treatment to all people. If a leader who is corrupt, insensitive, prejudiced and unjust, cannot succeed in his mission. Fair-mindedness suggests that the leader has an ability to step aside from bias and requires that the leader be open to more than one perspective. The goal of the fair-minded leader is to help uncover that collective wisdom. Furthermore, goal oriented is another key of important in trait of leader that the quality leader must have includes setting goals for the organization. They develop a plan and strategy to achieve the objectives, and also need to build commitment from the team and rally them to achieve the organization’s goal. As a leader, it is important to understand the level of motivation of the employees in the organization. According to the Maslow’s Hierarchy Theory, a human being has different needs at different levels and understanding those who needs, then providing the employees with what they need so that they can give their hundred percent at work is an essential quality that a leader must work upon if it is not inherent in him. A little motivation could work wonders for your employees and the organization, both. (Maslow, 1943) “Leadership is a combination of strategy and character. If you must be without one, be without the strategy” (Norman Schwarzkopf, 2000). Other than that, the most important principles are know yourself and seek improvement that evaluate the leader strengths and weaknesses. It is meaning that honest evaluation leader to determine him/her strong and weak personal qualities. Leader must be technically and tactically proficient that seeks the opportunities to apply knowledge through the exercise of command. Good leadership is acquired through practice.

1.8 Mentoring Traits and Principles

A good mentor cannot have ulterior motives to mentees. Mentor should takes pleasure in developing them and is not threatened by the mentee’s potential and take pride in watching them develop and grow. Besides that, a great mentor has time to spend mentoring. They are available for questions and can help their mentee overcome the difficult situation. They enjoy spending time and just conversing over developmental topics. By the way, principles of a mentor should select a mentor who is a good role model. It is mean that someone look is not only famous or successful, but who has a reputation for character and solid principles. The person look for someone can admire and respect as well as emulate. Moreover, mentor feedback must be thoughtful, specific, timely, and constructive. It is important aspect of a mentoring relationship between the mentors provides feedback to the mentee. Formulate negative feedback in a constructive fashion. Using open-ended questions that start with “how” or “what” help the mentee to solve their own solution. Mentor need to celebrate successes, and deal openly with failures. This will help the mentee have more confidence and the learning process. The mentor also can develop a good relationship with the mentee and become more comfortable with openly and freely conversing with each other. (Marty, 2012)

1.9 Competences/Skills needed of Leadership and Mentoring

Competencies were more widely cited than such important issues as being able to develop strategy and knowing how to manage the organization well. According John P. Kotter stated that leadership requires a burst of energy it relies on motivation and inspiration to energize people by satisfying basic human needs for achievement, a sense of belonging, recognition and self-esteem. (John, 2012) Hence, focused is one of the important points for a leader. Which mean that the leader is ability to clearly set the competitive for the organization in marketplace and then focus the energy and resources of the organization toward the achieved aim. As a good leaders can bring others to their point of view using reason, logic, emotion and the force of their personalities. Leader motivate by persuasion rather than using intimidation. Once a vision is established, leader can inspire team member in the company to get onboard, this inspiration can help to extend the customers, investors, suppliers, and the other entire stakeholder. Besides that, speed is a critical success factor for a leader, which means that having great product and services should be hand up on time. If slowing in response to customer needs is the best news to your competitors. Hence, creating and executing with a sense of urgency is a fundamental requirement success for a leader. (Tompson, 2009)

Base on Phillips Jones stated that mentors are influential people who significantly help you reach your major life goals. As a mentor can using open, creative and probing questions. Using open question is to encourage the mentee to talk and to help mentor see and hear things from their perspective. Hence, probing question is usually seeking to gain further information and what the mentee has already said. It is follow up and obtain more detail and draw out more information about specific points from the mentees. However, active listening is one of the key skills of mentoring. Active listening is important that provides a deeper understanding of the factors that hold the person back and their unique situation. It is also mean that the focus is on the mentee and not on the mentor. Mentor should providing open and honest feedback to the team member, which means that mentee should give different kinds of feedback to mentor. Feedback should mutual among mentor and mentee. Lastly, mentors are being both encouraging and challenging, which mean that mentor must be encourage their mentee to always set and maintain high standards of practice, encourage taking risk for exploration of innovative, and help their mentee challenging the each difficult gaols. (Phillips, 1993)

Select and discuss an appropriate context, (e.g. work, university, social or sport) and using at least one appropriate theoretical framework of skills and/or competences, access your potential to lead or mentor others.

2.0 Introduction of Competencies

Competencies can be thought of as the state or quality of being well qualified to perform a task. A person gains competency through education, training, experience, or natural abilities. Competence defined as “an underlying characteristic of a person which results in effective and/or superior performance on the job.” (Klemp, 1980) Last year, I’m worked in a tuition centre as a position is a tuition teacher. In that period of holding a tutor, I’m learning a lot of mentor skills when I teach. Here are some discussion on the matter happened when I lead the students.

2.1 Identifying the Competencies in work

The task of a tutor is closely tied to the nature of the classroom. Nowadays classroom called for the teacher is to “prepare virtually all students for higher order thinking and performance skills once reserved to only a few” (Darling-Hammond, 2006) As a mentor teacher’s role is guide the student to right ways, such as teach students do right thing, speak politely and no fighting in the classroom. I will catch every opportunity to encourage learning, believing that all students can learn. And learning isn’t limited to the classroom. I will take every opportunity to improve my own practice, in order to provide quality learning. By the way of an effective mentor teacher should be a reflective practitioner focused on inquiry into their own and others’ professional practice and learning, it is based on a clear understanding of outstanding teaching. Mentor acts as a change agent and educational leader, dedicated to facilitating growth in professional capability of the colleagues and to the wider learning community. For an effective mentor has a sound knowledge and skill base for their role and can establish respectful and effective mentoring relationships.

The other competency for a mentor is model reflective teaching practices. Mentor teacher should assist students in translating content knowledge and skills into successful classroom instructional practices. Such as I will explain and provide example for student more understand about the passages. Moreover, a mentor also needs to provide guidelines for making reflection part of their daily teaching practice. For example, I will record the note about classroom management, activities and assignments. I also will create a reflection and feedback forms to my student for capture both the student’s self-evaluation and the mentor’s input. This purpose was for evaluate my teaching standard, such information can ensure that students learn what I have taught them. It will help to improve the relationship between students and mentor. Student’s self-evaluation is an important part of the learning process, I wan students to be “self-regulate” their learning. When I ask for feedback on my teaching or on what students have learned, be sure I will respond with overt explanation of what am I doing differently in response to their feedback.

Other than that, apply and share effective classroom management strategies is important for a mentor. When I am a mentor last time, I will encourage ongoing dialogue for exchange opinion and idea with the students. I also will provided classroom management checklist that communication clear expectations about acceptable behavior, distributes materials efficiently and provides clear directions for student activities and homework. By the way, positive relationship between the student and the teacher is important for a mentor. A mentor and student who have the qualities of good communications, respect in a classroom, and show interest in teaching from the point of view of the teacher and learning from a student will establish a positive relationship in the classroom. So I will focusing on the relationship between the student and teacher, involving a setting in the primary grades, which I have found second grade to be extremely important for the student to gain a positive attitude for their future education. According to the Jones stated that student disruptions will occur frequently in classes that are poorly organized and managed where students are not provided with appropriate and interesting instructional tasks. (Jones, 1997).

By the way, I will encourage myself and colleague to nurture an appreciation of diversity in classroom. I will use assessment tool to help student easier to understanding what am I taught. For example, draw concept map can help student easier understand and assessing how well student see the “big picture”. Mentors can help student and themselves by sharing in the effort to examine their personal beliefs and biases concerning diversity issues. On the other hand, I will also examine assumptions about the students, such as consider whether they believe that intellectually gifted students are self-motivated and self-disciplined. It is mean that if student correct answer my question then I will give reward to them. On the other way, I also will examine my teaching practices reflect a belief that at-risk learners are slow learners and unmotivated to improve their skills. Lastly, as a mentor should embrace mentoring an investment in professional learning and continuous improvement. It is mean that as a mentor should be develop their own professional attitudes and knowledge. In that period, I have keep upgrading my knowledge and skill for sharing to student during class. Furthermore, I will to contribute to integrative theoretical and practical views on teaching practice to student.