Fostering mentorship Flashcards
How does one foster mentorship inside their organization?
Really dependent on a culture of trust and safety. Need to foster the conditions that allows people to be a bit more vulnerable with each other, necessary for the mentoring relationship. Obviously this will be difficult if there are any sort of toxic cultural factors.
If you’re in any kind of leadership role I think the best thing you can do to foster trust and safety is by “going first” - create safety by first putting yourself in a somewhat vulnerable position - ex: in retrospective or 1:1 discussions, mention something that you felt you could have handled better. The reciprocity bias then makes it easier for others to reciprocate. Conversely if you have some modicum of power but never admit to any vulnerabilities (where doing so creates an opportunity to build trust and safety), then what kind of a leader are you? Not doing so sends a pretty strong message to others that it’s not safe to open up, if people with more power don’t even feel they can do so.
As a sector and community (Victoria Tech), where are we doing a good job with mentorship, and where are we not?
Not sure I have the most comprehensive view of the sector in Victoria, but I think it’s telling the demand we have on the student side in Victoria for Lighthouse Labs, even from graduates with CS degrees (or midway through completion). Mentoring is one of our biggest differentiating factors compared to the traditional routes to becoming a developer, and there are plenty of students who come to us either with a CS degree or who have been studying on their own, who are citing this as a major reason they applied to our program and that’s helping to build their confidence that they can do the job. It’s clear that at least in the student phase, that people are completing their traditional education with often a complete lack of mentorship and that can affect their confidence and ability to quickly learn the right practical skills for the job.
