The Waltz of Leadership: Mentoring Vs. Discipleship between Leaders and Followers
The leader’s job is both dynamic and daunting. The leader must choreograph the corporate vision, purpose, values, strategy, tactics, and goals. The leader must also compose the team through which he executes the business model.
Leaders must influence followers by continually adjusting some 90 material variables validated in a 2006 article by Dr. Bruce Winston and Dr. Kathleen Patterson, “An Integrative Definition of Leadership.” Furthermore, the leader must continually orchestrate the emphasis between these variables in the context of competitive realities: (i) customers buy comparative value, (ii) value is a function of price, (iii) price pressure in the market is unforgiving, (iv) firms have more control over their costs than their prices, (v) profitability is a function of price and cost, and (vi) profitability is the prerequisite for career prospects of the employees.
Effective leaders practice what consulting firm Middle Market Methods considers R4: the right people with the right skills in the right jobs at the right time. Especially with regards to skills, this alchemy is a mix of discipline and mentoring. Discipline and mentoring can be strongly espoused values. As such, a leader’s corporate legacy may be institutionalizing the processes of discipleship and mentoring.
The family relationship between children, parents, and grandparents offers some insights into the organizational principles of discipleship and mentorship between leaders and followers. Grandparents and parents may share similar values. In addition, they may have similar motivations and aspirations for the child. However, parenting and parenting tactics may differ.
Grandparenting is akin to mentoring. Grandparents tend to have less face-to-face time with the child. They may approach the child altruistically with influence. They may invite the child to learn in a non-directive or threatening way. Perhaps the child is more receptive to the proposals of the grandparents because the source that emanates is not the comparatively authoritative father figure. Grandparents’ mentoring can result in the achievement of the child’s perspective or the development of wisdom. Successful grandparent mentoring can prepare the child to analyze ambiguous situations and make mature decisions.
Parenting is similar to discipline. Parents tend to spend more face-to-face time with the child. Parents may wish to indoctrinate the child. The parent’s teaching approach may include both positive and negative reinforcement. Parental discipline can result in the child’s perception of right and wrong. The desired result of parental discipline may be the child’s “good” Pavlovian response to situations beyond the parents’ line of sight. Successful parental discipline can result in institutionalized values and character of the child.
of homer Odyssey first introduced the word mentor and positioned the role as a trusted advisor. In Chip Bell’s Managers as Mentors, explains mentoring as the process by which the mentor helps a mentee to learn. Bell exposes the learning formula by describing its informal, infrequent, and nonconformist aspects. The idea of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates as opponents at bridge comes to mind. Both are corporate icons in their places, yet they advise each other on business and non-business issues.
The root of the word discipline is disciple. Tea Online etymology dictionary imparts a picture of a student achieving understanding. Students require teachers. Thus, the teaching process, or discipleship, connotes an environment of order, authority and rigor.
The comparison and contrast of discipline with tutoring can be seen as the difference between competence and skill. A leader can disciple his followers to levels of experience. For empowered and delegated business cultures, disciplined knowledge includes situations that require confirmation with the chain of command. This is especially important in virtual and global organizations. Leaders can measure the effectiveness of their discipline by the follower’s ability to apply acquired skills to predictably perform assigned responsibilities.
The concept of discipline enjoys several practical examples. Certified public accountant and bar exams attest to technical competencies for potential employers. Commercial banks routinely put new employees through credit training programs. Even permanent employees receive ongoing education and compliance training, such as sexual harassment, equal employment opportunity, and conflict management.
The goal of tutoring craft comes with a different game plan than discipline. Mentors do not trump mentees with authority. True mentorship is offered to the apprentice for personal consideration and voluntary adoption of it. The insights of the mentor are presented to the mentee as a means to reach a higher level of performance and personal fulfillment. Through effective mentoring, the learner can reach the apex of psychologist Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs: self-actualization.
While the apprentice is free to avoid knowledge without immediate consequences, a bad decision can affect his or her career development. This choice provides discernment to the learner. Also, since the learning experience includes the mentor, there is an opportunity for the mentor to try out stylistic approaches to sharing knowledge with other potential learners.
Mentoring is a reciprocal opportunity. The mentor can become the mentee. While the mentor role may involve experienced seniority, the (possibly) junior apprentice may impart knowledge to her mentor. For example, the veteran mentor can offer ideas about multicultural virtual teams to the mentee. The trainee can return the favor with technological skills to manage projects, such as Microsoft Project Server and Microsoft Share Point.
Discipline and mentoring can be examined through Frederick Herzberg’s two-factor theory of hygienic and motivating factors. Perhaps hygienic factors align with discipline. Hygiene factors include company policy and administration, supervision, interpersonal relationships, working conditions, salary, status, and security. Perhaps the motivating factors align with mentoring. Motivating factors include achievement, recognition of achievement, work itself, responsibility, advancement, and growth.
Work teams are increasingly diverse in terms of age, gender, demographics and geography. Consequently, the leader’s strategy to disciple and guide his team must be reconciled with the theaters of execution of the business model. The leader has to be smart enough to select the best script to disciple and guide the followers. Faced with these complexities, the leader may forego direct discipline and mentoring in favor of an indirect route. These paths can be intra-organizational or extra-organizational.
Leaders must consider cultural variation in their discipleship and mentoring strategy. The Geert-Hofstede Cultural Variation Tool provides comparative information in the categories of power distance index, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance index, and long-term orientation. For example, a wide variation in the power-distance index may indicate that discipling is easier than mentoring. In more egalitarian cultures, mentoring can be easier than discipling.
Dr. John Ivancevich provides generational information in his textbook, Human resources management. The older generation is mostly retired from the workforce. While his formal education may be comparatively spartan for generations to come, his experiences are invaluable. Are they mentors in waiting?
What about Generation X? They approach the last scenes of their careers. What do members of Generation X offer as disciples and mentors for the arrival of Generation Y in the workforce? Can these generations exchange knowledge in the context of mentoring?
The true dividends of discipline and mentoring are the mutual gratification of better employee performance. While the effect of discipline may be apparent, mentoring may not leave traceable causal evidence. Therefore, the leader must be content with favorable performance results, without ever knowing with certainty the part attributable to mentoring. This is the waltz of leadership.