Should my boss be mentoring me?

[MrBaker]

I am a Warehouse Manager, and I work directly for the Ops Manager. We had a disagreement a while ago during my annual appraisal, where he said he thought I was underperforming (despite my department meeting or exceeding set targets all year). This was based on my lack of process improvement ideas.

I pointed out that all of my studying has been self funded, and that the company has only given me 2 days "training"(moving into management course) since starting out as a General Operative at the company 9 years ago. I have been a the manager for 5 years and studying for 3 of them.

I suggested that as my manager, he should be mentoring me and teaching me new things. He disagreed and said for the salary I'm on I should figure it out for myself.

I understand that we all need to continue to invest in ourselves to stay relevant in our roles, but I cant help but think his response is just lazy management?!

Thoughts?

[Composite Guru]

Like a lot of management, they try not to help people that much as that person may pose a threat to their job in the future.

Try finding info out in other ways and try your best to outsmart the bloke as he's clearly an unhelpful c*nt.

[edc]

It's interesting to read your perspective on this. You say he should be "teaching me new things", but the same can also be said that you should be learning new things from him. This means you can't expect to have him sit in front of you and tell you new things. You need to learn them on the job, ask his view and approach on things, get into review some of your work or ideas etc. Your idea of lazy management is also a passive/lazy learning approach on your own part.

He's already given you some direction and what his expectation is by stating he wants more process improvements brought to the table. A good way to start is for you to figure out the priorities and then get his buy in. Then go ahead and implement. If you don't know how to or what the tools are then do some homework first but ask too and get him on board.

Mentoring or training is not just about the material you learn but about giving you the mandate/space/confidence to try something. Good managers can help you work out the bigger picture and put some sign posts up to help you get there.

Edited by edc on Friday 30th December 15:58

[miniman]

Agreed, mentoring is not the same as teaching. As a mentor, he should provide you with an environment in which you're empowered to develop new skills and knowledge, and to guide you, but not just give you the answers.

We've just moved to a personal development model which puts the focus on the individual to seek out feedback, guidance and so forth, rather than rock up to an appraisal once a year and find out what someone thinks of you. So put ideas to him and ask for specific input.

All that said, I do wonder how far you'll get as he doesn't sound like a particularly inspirational or capable leader.

[xjay1337]

Guy is a .

Either go above him for assistance or ask him to clearly set out some targets / goals and make sure you smash them.

Easy.

[Kermit power]

miniman said:

Agreed, mentoring is not the same as teaching. As a mentor, he should provide you with an environment in which you're empowered to develop new skills and knowledge, and to guide you, but not just give you the answers.

We've just moved to a personal development model which puts the focus on the individual to seek out feedback, guidance and so forth, rather than rock up to an appraisal once a year and find out what someone thinks of you. So put ideas to him and ask for specific input.

All that said, I do wonder how far you'll get as he doesn't sound like a particularly inspirational or capable leader.

You don't happen to work for the same very large American IT company as me, do you?

[Hoofy]

miniman said:

Agreed, mentoring is not the same as teaching. As a mentor, he should provide you with an environment in which you're empowered to develop new skills and knowledge, and to guide you, but not just give you the answers.

We've just moved to a personal development model which puts the focus on the individual to seek out feedback, guidance and so forth, rather than rock up to an appraisal once a year and find out what someone thinks of you. So put ideas to him and ask for specific input.

All that said, I do wonder how far you'll get as he doesn't sound like a particularly inspirational or capable leader.

Technically, that's coaching. If we're talking about personal development (rather than football or tennis).

[miniman]

Kermit power said:

You don't happen to work for the same very large American IT company as me, do you?

No

Hoofy said:

Technically, that's coaching. If we're talking about personal development (rather than football or tennis).

Yes I guess you're right there. In the context of skills development, I still think there's a strong onus on the individual to seek knowledge / feedback etc. - for instance

"How do I write this code?"

vs

"This is how I solved the problem, can you give me some feedback on it?"

[CaptainSlow]

There's only one person responsible for your career, and it's not your boss.

[Hoofy]

miniman said:

Yes I guess you're right there. In the context of skills development, I still think there's a strong onus on the individual to seek knowledge / feedback etc. - for instance

"How do I write this code?"

vs

"This is how I solved the problem, can you give me some feedback on it?"

Oh, of course. But the OPer is paying to go on his own courses so he sounds like he is being proactive.

[Kermit power]

miniman said:

Kermit power said:

You don't happen to work for the same very large American IT company as me, do you?

No

Just wondered, as we've done exactly the same thing about swapping from one off appraisals to a rolling process.

[Trabi601]

xjay1337 said:

Guy is a .

Either go above him for assistance or ask him to clearly set out some targets / goals and make sure you smash them.

Easy.

That's terrible advice.

The target and goal setting appears to be in place - so going above him and whinging that he's not 'mentoring' you will just get everyone's back up and consign the OP to a dead end role.

[miniman]

Kermit power said:

miniman said:

Kermit power said:

You don't happen to work for the same very large American IT company as me, do you?

No

Just wondered, as we've done exactly the same thing about swapping from one off appraisals to a rolling process.

We've just come to the end of year 1. Given the number of people who are moderately confused that they're not having and "end of year review" I don't think we've landed it terribly well. One of the key intentions was to decouple performance review from salary review - typically the annual review was just "yeah yeah so how much is my pay going up?". I think it works fairly well as a concept, but then I'm naturally the type to seek out feedback.

[CAPP0]

miniman said:

Kermit power said:

You don't happen to work for the same very large American IT company as me, do you?

No

You don't happen to have a lot of red and yellow around the place, do you?

[CaptainSlow]

miniman said:

We've just come to the end of year 1. Given the number of people who are moderately confused that they're not having and "end of year review" I don't think we've landed it terribly well. One of the key intentions was to decouple performance review from salary review - typically the annual review was just "yeah yeah so how much is my pay going up?". I think it works fairly well as a concept, but then I'm naturally the type to seek out feedback.

Quite a number of US companies have done this recently. Mine has just done the same.


Also, to add, it's often said that your mentor shouldn't be your boss and is often someone in a different function or even business.

[Yipper]

Sounds like a classic undertrained British boss... who in turn is undertraining his staff... It is a vicious circle that rarely breaks.

Sounds like a classic boss-worker breakdown. Those kind of situations almost never recover. Everyone seethes and ends up quietly hating each other. The only way you will advance is to quit the firm and seek a higher role elsewhere.

[xjay1337]

Trabi601 said:

That's terrible advice.

The target and goal setting appears to be in place - so going above him and whinging that he's not 'mentoring' you will just get everyone's back up and consign the OP to a dead end role.

Not really.

If my boss wasn't providing me a fair experience then I would, in certain circumstances (and have successfully) gone above them.

Especially if it seems that I am being "picked on" in terms of, I am smashing my monthly / yearly targets and yet I'm still put on a performance improvement plan.......

[davepoth]

Well, if you're supposed to be improving processes then that should really be one of your performance goals for the year - strike one against your boss for not setting your objectives properly.

However, after people management, process management is the biggest part of the job. You should always be thinking about how things can be done better - if you have been, perhaps you need to record it better? Even the really minor things can add up.

[bitchstewie]

Is your boss a technical manager or a people manager?

For example I work in IT and there are some things where my boss knows less than I do so if I stood at their door saying "It's your job to show me this" they couldn't even if they wanted to.

[ATG]

CaptainSlow said:

Also, to add, it's often said that your mentor shouldn't be your boss and is often someone in a different function or even business.

Echoing the point above, your boss is not your mentor. A mentor is supposed to be a fairly impartial person who can offer you advice in a fair degree of confidence, help you think about how you can tackle specific problems and situations (like navigating a difficult boss) and think about your skills, aptitude, and where that may be able to take your career, what steps you can take to realise goals, and finally they should be able to give you some advice on how to navigate your companies promotion processes and politics. Pretty obviously your boss can't be that impartial voice. Obviously it's your boss's responsibility to give you guidance or even requirements in many of the same areas, but he's doing it as a directly responsible, interested party, not as a mentor.