Introduction
I have been working in Software Development for over fifteen years. Nowadays I'm the Head of Technology for a small startup working on digital agents. Leadership is my passion.
I've discovered that there are three core approaches to Leadership:
- Mentorship
- Coaching
- Sponsorship
Lara Hogan has written very well about it in her Resilient Management book, and succinctly expressed in this tweet:
Lara Hogan@lara_hogan
As a manager, it’s important to balance your style between advice-giving (mentorship), active listening and curiosity (coaching), and empowering mode (sponsorship).
Learn how in my online Mentoring, Coaching, and Sponsoring workshop! (New date added!) eventbrite.com/e/mentoring-co…22:13 PM - 10 Apr 2020
Mentoring
Mentoring is how a Leader can actively teach skills to less experienced team members. And so, is the most important tool one can get access to earlier on one's career. Great Mentoring earlier on will yield far more capable and skilled team members in the future.
Earlier in my career I had no notion of how important this was, and the impact it could have on my future. Is hard to seek something when we don't know such a thing even exists. We simply don't know what we don't know.
So I would like to give this small insight to all of you who are starting this great and challenging career path.
Pen Pal
In these modern times many won't know what a Pen Pal is. Basically, people used to exchange hand written letters with each other. You could correspond with your Pal for years, or even a lifetime. Even now some people still practice this form of social interaction. And with our modern technology, some have taking it to email form.
The great thing about this practice is the asynchronous nature of it. You write a letter, post it, and wait for a reply. There is no expectation of instant notification or response, like you would have in a chat, or even email, situation.
Pen Pal Mentoring
Joining this two concepts and activities together, I thought it could be a great idea to Mentor people who are starting their careers in the Software industry, in a Pen Pal way.
This would be beneficial for both parties. For the Mentor, the opportunity to practice and hone its mentoring skills. For the Mentee, the opportunity to grow the skills required to succeed in this industry.
I would like to extend this offer to any "newbie" out there. If you are just starting, or only have a couple of years of experience under your belt, get in touch, maybe I can help you along the way. Leave me a comment, and we can get in touch!
Thanks for reading.
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