There are five areas of employee mentoring, such as performance, relationships, reputation and credibility, conflict resolution, and visibility (Borrego & Johnson, 2011). These areas are related to the workplace and should be combined to create a favorable environment for increasing employees’ engagement into organizational activities. To begin with, performance is the key to organizational success because it contributes to increase in profits, productivity, and competitiveness in the marketplace. In this respect, managers should develop specific performance assessment programs for employees to be more motivated and realize the level of their performance and competence as compared to other employees. In such a way, it will be possible to create an efficient environment in which all employees will strive to outperform each other. Further, relationship management is premised on effective communication and interaction, as well as on transparent reporting and accurate information exchange. Communicative techniques will also promote a greater understanding of organizational objectives and will motivate employees to improve the quality of production and organizational purposes. More importantly, cross-cultural communication can eliminate misunderstanding among employees of different cultural and social backgrounds.
Reputation and credibility can be achieved through developing corporate social responsibility efforts which are premised on satisfying the needs of all stakeholders involved into organizational activities. In this context, managers should take into consideration the needs of their employees, including the development of their skills and expanding their experience through training programs. Additionally, the task of managers is to provide employees with social insurance and financial rewards. When it comes to visibility, the managers should be able to predict the potential of the employees, including their concerns, gaps, and problems to ensure that they are eliminate and the organization’s welfare is improved. Furthermore, the task of the manager is to envision and highlight employees’ talents to define which position suits the best a specific employee. In addition, the task of the employees is to discuss the potential problems which prevent the talented employees from improving their knowledge and skills. They should be ready to challenges to adjust to those correspondently.
Conflict management is one of the key factors insuring successful management of an organization. Conflict can stem from the failure of the individuals to reconcile their personal interests with those expressed by others in the workplace. Therefore, lack of compromise and inability to understand other employees’ needs can lead to a conflict. Additionally, conflicting situation can be the result of the cultural and social diversity, which is underestimated by the manager. The task of the manager it to scan the working environment to define the uniqueness of cultural and social groups blended in a working team, as well as make use of this situation. In other words, the presence of culturally diverse groups can turn into an advantage for the managers and employees who can exchange their experience and share new knowledge for the purpose of improving the performance and reputable image of a the company. Additionally, there should be specific mechanisms that would provide precautions for managers and employees in conflicting situations. The issues emerged as a result of the conflict must be controlled to prevent further complications. Therefore, conflict management plays a crucial role in each situation, should it be concerned with privacy issues or with the workplace disagreements. An experienced manager should also realize that conflict management goes through a long way in enhancing the ties among the employees regardless of the cultural, ethnic, and social discrepancies. They should be able to work on a specific task and contribute new ideas to regulating the organizational process.
In addition to the work-related areas, there are also certain leadership competences which can increase the integrity of the company, as well as its potential to sustain a competitive advantage over other organizations specializing in the field. In order to take control of employees and their contribution to organizational activities, leaders should master four leading competencies, such as conflict management, ethical decision-making, employee engagement, and motivation (Borrego & Johnson, 2011). These aspects are essential for creating a favorable working environment.
To begin with, conflict management promotes creative tension and different outlooks on a specific issue. At this point, considering different dimensions of the problem can facilitate the decision-making and eliminate any display of conflict and disagreement. Hence, the task of leaders is to take resolute steps and introduce recommendations and counteractive strategies that would make the conflict neutral (Borrego & Johnson, 2011). Furthermore, the leaders should make a new solution out of conflict. In other words, conflict can lead to new decisions and solutions that would facilitate the business process and goals accomplishment.
Second, the ethical decision-making is an integral component of efficient leadership because it can create a favorable environment in which employees can reach a consensus and come to a common conclusion. Ethical conduct is the priority in a cultural diverse environment, which can lead to higher experience exchange, as well as to the development of professionalism and mutual understanding (Borrego & Johnson, 2011). What is more important is that leaders should have confident about their objectives and purposes to imprint confidence in their followers. Leaders should know how to negotiate misunderstanding and create new approaches to decision-making. An individual-centered approach in this context is essential because it can contribute to performance and eliminate conflicts. Moreover, it can also encourage the greater employee engagement into challenging issues within an organization and make them take an active part in managing organizational culture. Younger employees, therefore, should be supported by more experienced one, whereas older employees should never stop learning something new from younger employees who can also give a fresh insight into organizational activities.
When it comes to motivation, such issues as relationship, visibility and reputation and credibility come to the forth. Specifically, the task of the employees is to ensure sufficient management of company’s processes, including hiring, human resource management, and many others. Therefore, it is always important to find approaches for leaders to encourage, motivate, and support their employees (Reese & Loane, 2012). Lack of motivation can lead to a decline in performance, which in turn does not contribute to reputation and credibility of the company.
Finally, employee engagement is also the major purpose of leaders and mentors who should constantly encourage employees to take part in different meetings and brainstorming activities. According to Walker (2012), “employee engagement describes employees’ emotional and intellectual commitment to their organization and its success. Engaged employees experience a compelling purpose and meaning in their work and give of their discrete effort to advance the organization’s objectives” (p. 92). Therefore, employee engagement has a direct relation to performance and intellectual development. Engagement is achieved by cultural and distributed leadership by means of which leaders can share power in a well-organized way which promotes balance and harmony in relationships. Engagement must not resort to fanatic attitude to work; employees must be more motivated and reasonable in their contributions to the organizational culture. At the same time, going through boundaries is possible as well.
In order to improve performance, leaders should be both mentors and managers. Therefore, assessment schemes and transparency in organizational activities could increase performance. There are many acknowledged companies, such as Coca-Cola Company, or Ford Company that practice cultural diversity management because it contribute to better understanding and experience sharing, which is essential to higher performance among the employees. Further, relationship management is another important stance that provides new strategies for improving performance.
Relationship management can also be improved because it contributes to communication, integration, and collaboration. Relationship management implies knowledge expansion and experience sharing through which employees can communication and exchange ideas. Relationship management is also premised on person-centered approach which implies the analysis of individual’s skills, competencies, and talents, which can improve the overall performance. Establishing trustful relationship with employees can help managers improve the quality of relationship with their clients.
Reputation and credibility of the organization can be enhanced through the development of the respective vision and mission that can approve social corporate responsibility. The latter implies the establishment of a rich organizational culture within which the employee will be ready to adhere to organizational goals, as well as be committed to the company’s philosophy. More important, relations imply the adaptability and readiness to changes, which is essential for sustaining a competitive advantage. Additionally, line management is another important approach for defining the position of each employee in organization’s hierarchy. Much concern should be presented with the awareness of the leader of the roles and responsibilities imposed on those employees. Specifically, the task of the leader is to draw the line between the responsibilities taken by the managerial staff and the ones performed by their subordinates (Rose, 2008). In fact, greater employee commitment can contribute to improved economic performance and provide new ideas for organizing employee training and development.
There should be specific model has placed the emphasis on integrating human resources, its frameworks and policies. In this context, new conflict resolution idea could be integrated to generate greater commitment, communication, and motivation. Integrating human resources implies developing new reforms that would improve new leadership approaches. For instance, it is possible to introduce a specific ethical code and punishment for employee who are not able to solve problems without conflicts and disagreements. The algorithm will be composed of the following steps:
- Highlight the problem;
- Finding a compromise;
- Organizing warming up activities to find out the decision;
- Implementing the provided ideas;
- Highlighting the major gaps of the decisions to correct the plan and improve the situation.
The above-presented algorithm could also be employed for increasing employees’ motivation to take part in various business activities and projects. More importantly, the scheme can also promote greater flexibility and readiness to adjust to changes.
Visibility implies that each manager should predict what potential each employee possesses to contribute to organizational philosophy and ideology. In this respect, company’s vision creates the foundation for developing other rules, principles, and ethical codes. In such a way, it is also possible to adjust to the stressful situations, as well as introduce new schemes for solving problems. Vision should also be supported by managers who should also perform the role of mentors for their employees. The company’s vision should also be oriented as satisfying the needs of the culturally diverse personnel. In particular, the company should integrate diverse ideas with reliance to the offers proposed by employees with a deep cultural and ethnical background. Respect for cultures can also contribute to the development of new leadership competencies, such as the ability to negotiate and reach agreements with employees originating from other cultures. Such an approach is also efficient in the organization strives to enter the international market. Choosing the global orientation can help the organization become more competitive and competent. There will be much more space for professional development, opening new educational opportunities.