Shannon Moroney has been through some very challenging times in her life yet she has managed to thrive. No one gets a free pass in life, so we will always encounter stormy weather at some point. The important thing is how we respond. Shannon offers some advice, “My one piece of advice would be that every night when you go to bed and put your head on your own pillow, you have to feel at peace with yourself, what you’ve done during the day, how you’ve interacted with other people, how you’ve treated yourself and others. If you feel at peace with all those things then no naysayer, no critic can get in the way of who you are in accomplishing your goals and that’s the advice I would give.”

Avil Beckford: How did mentors influence your life?

Shannon Moroney:  I’ve been so fortunate that I have had so many mentors, leaders in my life, at all different points, all different kinds of people, every age, that have given me perspective on things, have given me advice, who have modeled for me who I would like to be. I would be nowhere without all the people in my life who are champions of the human spirit who offer guidance directly or by the way they live.

Avil Beckford: What’s one core message you received from your mentors?

Shannon Moroney: Overall, a message I picked up along the way is that we’re not in control of what happens to us, but we’re in control of how we respond, and who we are. That message of knowing who I am, knowing what my values are, is something that has fortified me through difficult times and good times as well.

How have mentors influenced you? What mentoring tips can you share with us? Please write your comments in the box below.

This blog post curates excellent content on effective leadership and mentoring from a variety of websites to keep you informed on what’s happening in the areas.

Find the Reverse Leaders in Your Midst:  On the Harvard Business Review Blog, they propose that reverse leadership is going to be the next trend. Reverse leadership occurs when someone who is not in a formal leadership role exhibits great leadership skills. Reverse leaders exhibit the follow five qualities: They’re the ones with strong interpersonal skills born of self-awareness; they focus more on results than on process; they exhibit particularly high degrees of integrity; they have deep professional expertise in at least one discipline vital to the organization; and they maintain an unswerving customer focus.

Five Team Building Skills You Can Learn from the Navy SEALs: The article looks at a leadership structure that transports well from the army to the civilian world: Create structure; work on organizational building; encourage progressive thinking; recognize that leadership is a skill; alleviate pressure and teach teamwork.

World’s Largest Business Mentoring Event Sets Guinness Record at Ontario Centres of Excellence Discovery 12 Conference: Recently in Toronto, 328 people participated in a speed-mentoring event to set a Guinness World Record. Donna Messer, Queen of Networking facilitated the event. To get the record, each participant had to be involved in 20 interactions that lasted at least three minutes. Ontario Centres of Excellence worked with Jeremy O’Krafka founder of MENTORnetwork to help to structure the event.

9 minutes a day: Continuous career management: This blog post by LinkedIn provides tips on how to use LinkedIn as a tool to easily management your career in only nine minutes a day.

10 big mistakes successful leaders make: Successful leaders often fall into these pitfalls if they are not careful: Becoming the status quo; having tunnel vision; losing their fear; Developing a fear of losing; all knowing; becoming isolated; controlling; surrounding themselves with yes-men; losing their magic; and believing if they build it they will come.

Networking Tips: Go From Awkward to Awesome: Inc.com offers five tips on how to get the most from a networking event – Know who you don’t know, but want to; do your homework; know your story and your audience; know your ask, and don’t be shy; and do what you say you will do.

3 Things Professional Women Should Stop Apologizing For: In this short Fast Company article, Amber Mac provides some mini case studies of professional women apologizing. She offers three things that women should stop apologizing for: Our financial expectations; our physical appearance; and our professional accomplishments.

The Maturation of the Billionaire Boy-Man: Founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Elliot Zuckerberg has grown up and built a global company. Zuckerberg, still in his twenties, had to learn to lead and communicate with his employees. He consulted advisors and received CEO Lessons from “Steve Jobs, Marc Andreessen (now a Facebook board member), Don Graham of the Washington Post, LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman, Accel Partner’s Jim Breyer, and Peter Thiel, an iconoclastic investor and entrepreneur who was Facebook’s first professional funder.” Zuckerberg recognized that for him to succeed he needed mentors.

What do you have to add to the conversation? Please write your comments in the box below.

People who have mentored others often comment that they receive as many benefits from the mentorship relationship as do the mentee. If you have ever wondered why you should mentor another, here are three reasons:

1. You will raise the bar in the industry.
2. It’s a way to pay it forward.
3. It’s what true service orientation is about. 

Investing the time and effort into a relationship can have a transforming effect. Who is one person you know who would benefit from your knowledge and experience? A mentorship relationship can be informal, and doesn’t have to take huge amounts of time. You can invest as little or as much time as you want to. The important thing is how you spend the time you have with your mentee.

What do you have to add to the conversation? Please write your thoughts in the comments box below.

Related articles

• What People Should Look for in a Mentor (cwcvirtualmentor.com)
• 4 Common Challenges with Traditional Mentorship Programs (cwcvirtualmentor.com)
• What Makes a Mentoring Program Unique (cwcvirtualmentor.com)
• The Other Benefits of Mentoring (cwcvirtualmentor.com)

Recently, the Canadian Women in Communications (CWC) held a webinar, Mentorship: Return on Investment where they discussed a few key things that a mentee should look for in a prospective mentor. However, the mentee has to understand herself, and know what she is looking for out of a mentoring relationship before she chooses a mentor.

The key qualities of a mentor should include:

• Experience
• Personality fits with the mentee
• Values similar to the mentee
• Dedication
• Altruism – wants to help
• Prepared to carve out the time for a mentoring relationship

What do you have to add to conversation? What qualities do you want to see in a prospective mentor? Please write your thoughts in the comments box below.

Related articles

• 4 Common Challenges with Traditional Mentorship Programs(cwcvirtualmentor.com)

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• What Makes a Mentoring Program Unique(cwcvirtualmentor.com)

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• The Other Benefits of Mentoring(cwcvirtualmentor.com)

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This blog post curates excellent content on effective leadership and mentoring from a variety of websites to keep you informed on what’s happening in the areas.

Women, Welch Clash at Forum: At a recent conference on Women in the Economy held by The Wall Street Journal, many women clashed with the views of former CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch. Welch made comments such as, “Individual mentoring programs, meanwhile, are “one of the worst ideas that ever came along,” he said. “You should see everyone as a mentor.”” After reading the article do you agree with Jack Welch?

Nine Rules Women Must Follow to Get Ahead: The Wall Street Journal sets up the article by outlining the state of women’s leadership, then it introduces the nine rules: Work hard; do work no one else wants to do; cultivate the people in charge, know what you want and go after it; promote yourself legitimately; network with your peers, make your own career; leave to get ahead; and dress well and play golf. What is your opinion? Do you agree or disagree with the nine rules?

How to Adopt Mentors Without Really Asking: This is a case study on Shellye Archambeau, chief executive of MetricStream. Archambeau used self-mentoring as one tool to get ahead. She chose people she wanted to emulate, asked them for advice, but chose something that was easy for them. Archambeau took the advice and followed up. She also learned many leadership lessons from her mother.

7 Tips for Networking:  Here are seven tips for networking from Entrepreneur magazine: Resist the urge to arrive late; ask easy questions; ditch the sales pitch; share your passion; smile; and remember to follow-up.

7 Smart Things Donald Trump Told Me: Donald Trump the real estate and entertainment mogul shared seven tips with Inc. – The Value of a Personal Brand, Mistakes People Make When Selling, What Makes a Great Entrepreneur, Branching Out Into New Endeavors, Spotting Talent, Bringing Your Kids Into the Business, and Upside & Downside of Fame. Trump explains what he means for each tip and gives examples.

Female executives share views of progress: It’s always gratifying to learn about the progress that women in different industries are making. This case study focuses on the women of Omaha.

Supermarkets and the social Web: We can learn from all industries, and this article looks at social media in the food industry. “The big thing to remember is that whether it’s Facebook or Twitter or something else, social media is a tech-enabled solution to do something we’ve always done — build a relationship with your shoppers and your associates, so you become someone they lean on not just for products but for ideas and solutions,” said Michael Sansolo, Progressive Grocer Editor-in-Chief. That’s a great reminder and something that all senior level executives (and everyone) should be mindful of. Here are some tips from Sansolo that apply to any industry: Communicate with value, Realize it’s a two-way street, and Give up old ideas of control.

5 LinkedIn Features You May Not (But Should) Know About: Chief Information Officer magazine, CIO provides five LinkedIn tips: Browse Securely is a feature if your internet connection is not secure; Easily Find Contacts You Already Know; Listen to Headlines on Your Smartphone; Hide Your Identity When Viewing Profiles; and Visualize Your Network.

What do you have to add to the conversation? Please write your comments in the box below.

Recently, the Canadian Women in Communications (CWC) had a webinar, Mentorship: Return on Investment, and one of the issues they touched on was some of the challenges to mentorship today.

1. Difficult to find mentors: People are busy and juggling multiple priorities so they often find it difficult to commit to being a mentor. Formal mentorship programs should be structured so that prospective mentors know beforehand the time commitment expected. Mentees have to do their part by always being prepared for meetings with their mentors.
2. Personality differences: It’s a reality in life that some people will not get along because of differences in personality. If the mentor and mentee cannot work through their differences, then it’s time to get the mentee another mentor and the mentor can be assigned another mentee.
3. Difference in approach and style: People approach things differently, and if mentor and mentee have flexibility then this challenge can often be resolved. If the divide is too wide, the mentor and mentee may have to be reassigned.
4. Need for structure…too much structure: People work in different ways. Some people need a defined structure to thrive, while others languish in such an environment.

The CWC’s mentorship program is a success because the organization invests a lot of time and effort upfront to match mentors with mentees. Please add your thoughts in the comments section below.

Related articles

• What Makes a Mentoring Program Unique(cwcvirtualmentor.com)

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When you think of mentors, what image comes to your mind? Drew Dudley, Founder & Chief Catalyst, Nuance Leadership Development Services, Inc. believed that a mentor had to be older, have more money, and did what he did. One day, he realized that his perception of mentoring was quite skewed.

Avil Beckford: How did mentors influence your life?

Drew Dudley:  Because I was looking for mentors in a conventional sense – who your boss is, who does what you do, and who you look up to – for most of my life I didn’t have much of that. My father was a tremendous mentor, but in terms of my career, there wasn’t very many. I didn’t work for people who really inspired me, and do things the way I would have been proud of doing. My perceived lack of mentors made me feel as if I had to take care of things on my own. The older I get, the more I realize that I had mentors every step of the way. They were my friends, they were my students. Those were mentors, but I thought mentorship was, only if you’re older, if you have more money, or you have a bigger title, those are the people who teach you things so you get the same stuff. I realize now that that perception of mentor had an impact on my life that was detrimental.

My mentors are students who forced me to apply to be a speaker at TED Toronto, which had a massively, positive impact on my career. Those were mentors, so when I look back, mentors had a big impact on my life in ways I did not recognize. I encourage people to look around and see who are the mentors in their life and to let go of the idea that they have to be older, have to have more money, and have to have bigger titles. I think mentors are the ones who live their lives in a way that you respect, and that you’d be proud of living your life that way. If you took money out of the world, and all we had as currency was how much value people add to others in terms of intellectual capacity, social, and spiritual capital, look around and ask who pour most of that into the world, and those people should be your mentors. Once I started focusing on those people in my life, my life got tremendously better.

Drew Dudley’s perspective on life also changed as a result of the deaths of three people who really mattered in his life. He learned that his encounters with others really matter. He learned his interactions with others should change them in even small ways. His friends taught him that he should live a life that means something, a life that’s bigger than him, a life that truly matters. The mentors in your life can help you to do that.

What do you have to add to the conversation? Please add your thoughts in the comments section.

This blog post curates excellent content on effective leadership and mentoring from a variety of websites to keep you informed on what’s happening in the areas.

Are Corporate Women’s Initiatives Just Distractions?: In this article, Vivien Chen explores the idea of whether programs that are established to help women get promoted really do what they are supposed to do, or simply add more to women’s workload, and make them busier.

8 Core Beliefs of Extraordinary Bosses: Are you an extraordinary boss?: In this Inc.com article, Geoffrey James, uncovers eight beliefs of extraordinary bosses, do you agree with him? Business is an ecosystem, not a battlefield; A company is a community, not a machine; Management is service, not control; My employees are my peers, not my children; Motivation comes from vision, not from fear; Change equals growth, not pain; Technology offers empowerment, not automation; and Work should be fun, not mere toil are the  beliefs he mentions in his article

Studying how much powerful men and women talk: Victoria Brescoll, assistant professor at the Yale School of Management evaluated how men and women in powerful positions talk in group situations. Men in powerful positions talk more than their counterparts in lower level positions, while the difference between women in powerful positions and those in less powerful positions was insignificant. Brescoll goes on to explore why this is the case. This is an interesting article by Washington Post writer Jena McGregor.

To Avoid Stupid Mistakes, Think in French: It’s not just French, it’s any language that’s not your first language. The results of a study by Boaz Keysar, a University of Chicago psychologist, reports that when you think and reason in a language that is not your mother tongue, there is no emotion attached, you work things out much slower, and make better decisions.

Networking for Introverts: 3 Tips for Success: Networking can be very uncomfortable for introverts. This Inc.com article explores the issue and offers three tips: Network on your own terms; Create a comfortable environment for yourself; and Leverage your skills as an introvert.

Introverts: Network in Your Own Way: Compare and contrast these Harvard Business Review tips with those from Inc.com. HBR recommends that introverts Focus on individuals; Rethink how you reach out; and Re-energize.

Leadership 101: Procrastination and Presence: This article uses Napoleon and Sir Winston Churchill to demonstrate the importance of valuing your time and to stop procrastinating. “Procrastination for a leader is nothing less than the disregarding of opportunity, the irresponsible mismanagement of assets and the negligence of people. It is no less ruinous to a leader as are cowardice, abandonment, and theft.”

Are Mentors Getting in the Way of Your Success?: This article sets up the cases for having sponsors versus mentors. And I would add that having both is great because they perform two very different functions.

The Steve Jobs Way: This article by Strategy and Leadership is very well thought out. It lays out the good and the bad of Jobs’ leadership style and is a very good read. In the end, leaders should only emulate the qualities in Steve Jobs that would work in their corporate culture. “Jobs’ leadership style was complex. He was intensely focused when committed, confident enough to take risky leaps, and charismatic enough to enlist legions of employees and customers in the relentless pursuit of his aspirations. He was also interpersonally immature well into his adult life: impatient, stubborn, and hypercritical, if not downright cruel at times…”

The secret to getting a promotion: This is a story of contrast, funny yet filled with valuable information. To get a promotion you have to be resilient, positive, strategic and ambitious. Learn to do those things by reading the examples provided in the article.

What do you have to add to the conversation? Please write your comments in the box below.

Joann Lim is very ebullient and you feel very good around her. She has packed a lot of living in her young life, and has so much to offer to others. Here is an excerpt from Joann Lim’s interview.

Avil Beckford: How did mentors influence your life?

Joann Lim:  Mentors influenced my life heavily. They inspire me, empower me, they raise me up when I feel weak, they give me courage in times of fear, and they pave a pathway. They help elevate who I am, and believe in me when I don’t believe in myself as much as I should.

One of my mentors, he says that, “For any successful person that you value, they started somewhere, and to remember this, everyone starts somewhere.” We all choose where we’re going to start. That was very powerful for me to know that no matter what, no matter where people are in their life, no matter what they’re doing, no matter so amazing they seem, how brilliant their lives appear to be, it’s a matter that they chose to start.

Avil Beckford: What’s one core message you received from your mentors?

Joann Lim: One message is the power of starting, and I think one of the other messages is don’t give up. One of my mentors drills that into me all the time when I see her. It’s the idea that when people believe in you and believe in what you’re capable of doing, there is a power in saying, “don’t give up, keep going, keep persisting, keep believing and incredibleness will happen.”

Avil Beckford: What are the steps you took to succeed in your field?

Joann Lim:

1. Identifying what success meant to me. To make success meaningful to me I needed to understand how I defined it.
2. Asking myself what it would look like to give my best to the world.
3. How can I be more completely me? And that ties into the step above. How can I give more to this world? What do I need to give my best?
4. Sharing, sharing with everybody. Sharing honestly and authentically. Just being me with the people around me. Be willing to be vulnerable, sharing the ups and the downs. And beyond that, giving them a space to be completely them.
5. Perseverance – to not let one closed door end the dream. More often than not, one closed door results in another amazing door to open. Embrace opportunities as they come, and maximize very ounce of who you are, everything you know and everybody you know, take them along the journey, and the journey will be a success.

One tip that Joann would like to share with you is, “You matter, your life matters, your choices matter, your actions matter, your attitude matters, and it’s in that capacity that we embrace the idea that we matter. The things we do in life become more intentional, have more meaning, they’re more inspiring, and more empowering.”

What can you learn from Joann Lim? Please add your thoughts in the comment box below.

Have you ever thought about what makes a mentoring program unique?

There are many mentoring programs out there, and many of them are successful. But oftentimes, they do not have that je ne sais quoi, that special ingredient that makes them stand apart from, and above the crowd.

The CWC/Shaw Media Mentorship Program has panache and much more. A considerable amount of work is done upfront before a mentee is matched with a mentor. A mentee has to do an in-depth assessment so that she can clearly articulate who she is and what she needs. It takes a lot of time, but it’s worth the effort. In addition, there is a program lead – Rodger Harding – for the mentoring program. Harding assists the mentee in interpreting the results of her assessment. This is critical so that the mentee will get what she needs from the mentorship program.

Based on the results of the assessment, then and only then, is the mentee matched with a mentor. The mentee is also in a very safe environment, and she has the ability to express who she is, and who she wants to become, with her mentor – she can be vulnerable. Corporate mentoring programs often do not offer completely confidential environments, and being vulnerable could very well be frowned upon.

Members of the Canadian Women in Communications have access to the CWC/Shaw Media Mentorship Program as one of the benefits of their membership.

What are some unique benefits you have enjoyed from a mentorship program?