“Mentoring” and “being mentored” are just fancy terms for teaching and learning. In general, your most valuable lessons from work came from a boss or a colleague.

One of the main drivers in every human being is this: when people take an interest in us we thrive. The mentoring manager takes an interest in his or her people.

Mentoring taps on energy, ideas, motivation and productivity.

Nobody excels without a coach or a mentor – for example, you might become a good athlete but to become an Olympic athlete you have to be mentored by a coach.

An excellent Manager is not only a Manager that brings knowledge and experience but also a person who Manages his people, mentors them. After all, business is still about people.

How to become a Mentoring Manager?

Teach people the 80/20 principle.
Be available for open communication. Mentoring is a 80/20 activity because it has a big positive impact & provides great results compared to the effort put into it. Mentoring is not a time consuming activity it is rather a non-planned effort of open communication.
Get everyone under your supervision to mentor their people – it will bring exponential results in performance. Rate their performance based on the performance of the people that work under them.
Believe it or not praising an employee’s good performance is a form of mentoring – always recognize the positives of your employees. On the other hand, always offer positive advice on how to eliminate negative performance by providing positive advice (mentoring) – positive being here the key word.
Mentoring is not a chore or part of a checklist, it’s about caring. The way to great mentoring is to care about your people.
Pick up on the signals people send out when they need your advice, care and guidance. Mentoring is about communicating the right things at the right time. Go for quality over quantity.
Listen and listen carefully. The best mentors are those who listen.

Mentoring and being mentored is one of the most satisfying and rewarding activities.