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Nonprofit Mentoring | Are You a Mentor …or a Tormentor?  

Are You a Mentor…or a Tormentor?   

Nonprofit Mentoring

You all want great people with you in your organizations. You want them to be able to do things that you can’t do. You want them to do things better than you do them yourself. You also want them to take initiative. To have all this happen to your liking, you need to be a MENTOR.

You are in control either way: lead by example, share stories, teach the principles of your organization, answer questions and so on. That’s the ‘What”. The “How” is where success takes place in nonprofit mentoring.

Are you leading with “good” examples? Do you share the best stories? Are you patient when teaching? Are you available to answer questions with nonprofit mentoring? If not, you are a TORMENTOR. Your staff will not become the best versions of themselves for you. They might be afraid to ask a question because you are busy. They WILL NOT come to you if they forgot something you already told them, because you will get impatient and “scold” them in the process. Who loves to be scolded? Not me!

When you have been or witnessed a mentor trying to help a baby walk for the first time, is there ever yelling, impatience, inattentiveness, or negative body language? I would say not. This is precisely why the baby keeps trying and trying. Imagine if someone, not you of course, became agitated, made faces or even walked away for a while. That someone is a TORMENTOR. We might see seven-year-olds still crawling!! Why walk when they feel mistreated?

This is human nature that begins at birth and ends shortly before our last breath. Your staff is somewhere on that spectrum. They are looking to learn from you as much as you should like teaching them. Your attitude, words and body language will determine the nonprofit mentoring success.

So, what’s your answer to the question?

 

John J. Corcoran

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