Tag Archives: mentor

Leadership Training Every Startup Should Consider

A help button on a rusty old bear trap. Credit risk concept. Very high resolution 3D render.Contributed article in our entrepreneurial series. Enjoy! – Kimberly

Every day there are literally tens of thousands of companies starting up around the world and many of them do well while many fail. Part of the reason for this is because some entrepreneurs have had thorough leadership training while others have a great idea but don’t have the skills to start and run a company. Those entrepreneurs who have no experience leading a team should seriously consider leadership training that will help them get their company off the ground and on the road to success.

Join Professional Associations within Your Industry

Many times joining a professional association will provide leadership training in the form of a mentor. Continue reading→

It’s Just Lunch – Asking an Executive to Mentor You by Kimberly Wiefling (Wiefling Consulting)

Businessman-Clock-300x280(This article was originally published on www.svprojectmanagement.com)

Some of the best mentoring I’ve ever received is from executives. Even when I was a mere pawn in the corporate chess game I longed to understand the game from the view of the king. Working in the basement of the building which is now the Facebook headquarters, I mostly had a view of the shipping and receiving dock. Although I had plenty to do in the bowels of what was then an analytical instrument manufacturing facility, I found working without a clear vision of where we were headed as on organization unsatisfying. And in my state of youthful exuberance I was truly convinced that I could make a meaningful difference to the success of our organization if only I knew what the goals were. Continue reading→

Mentoring Circles – Better Leveraging a Mentor’s Time by Kimberly Wiefling (Wiefling Consulting)

Circle-of-Heads-300x199(This article was originally published on www.svprojectmanagement.com)

Having a mentor all to yourself might seem like the ideal, but it can get a little awkward sitting across the table from a person whose experience greatly surpasses your own. Sometimes having one mentor meet with several people at the same time can be very effective way to leverage the precious time of a highly experienced person. While you might like to keep them all to yourself, having a bigger audience could increase your chances of landing a highly skillful mentor, make the experience less awkward, and you might also learn a lot from the other people in your mentoring circle. Try group mentoring! Continue reading→

From Mentor to Colleague by Kimberly Wiefling (Wiefling Consulting)

Ladies Using Laptop by stockimages

(This article is first published in www.svprojectmanagement.com. Image courtesy of stockimages / FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

Some mentoring relationships last a single meeting, but others last a lifetime. Sometimes a mentoring relationship will turn into a long term relationship. (No, I don’t mean that you sleep with your mentor, or marry them.) I mean that they will come to value and enjoy the mentoring relationship as much as you do. This has happened in several of my mentoring relationships. Because we enjoyed our mentoring sessions so much we continued them beyond the point where I was seeking advice and guidance from them. Eventually they started to ask me for advice. Mentoring turned into co-mentoring, and eventually friendship. (I sometimes have joked that they were the mentor, but I was the tor-mentor!) Continue reading→