We support leaders - Mentoring
In all organisations, leaders and managers benefit from support and someone to listen to their concerns.
Cranfield Trust mentoring gives leaders space to think, grow and build confidence in their decisions. It can help emerging leaders identify strengths and growth areas, translating learning into practice quickly. This helps them to prepare for leadership roles.
The mentoring relationship is driven by the mentee and tailored to their own particular needs. Mentoring is not a quick-fix engagement: it is a meaningful medium to long-term relationship that helps mentees with their thinking. By asking the right questions, mentors get to understand a mentee’s world – and help them to find answers themselves.
Mentoring is a very important part of our work and features strongly in our ongoing relationships with client organisations. Mentoring and strategic planning are closely interwoven in our work: we have seen a growing number of clients ask for mentoring support as they implement a plan developed through consultancy support.
Working with emerging leaders is also a substantial part of our mentoring activity: increasing numbers of clients ask for multiple mentors for emerging leaders and managers. Over the last year, we have had a number of client organisations who have had two or three mentoring assignments running concurrently.
Mentoring provides a supportive space for charity leaders and managers to discuss their problems, explore options and feel that they are not alone. Mentoring relationships are also valued by our Volunteer Mentors, who often mentor on a regular basis.
Mentoring relationships usually last six months, but are flexible, mentors and mentees decide how long to sustain the relationship.
We hold regular reflective sessions for our Volunteer Mentors to share their reflections confidentially, and to learn from one another. During the year, we ran 15 reflective sessions, supporting our Volunteer Mentors to continuously develop their mentoring practice.
Mentoring was in high demand this year and we saw a 10% increase in the number of mentoring assignments started in the year. We are proud to report that 100% of mentees would recommend our mentoring to others, and 97% also reported excellent, very good or good learning from their mentor/mentee partnership.
“Working with a Cranfield Trust Mentor has significantly strengthened my leadership capabilities in that the mentor's guidance has helped me better navigate complex professional challenges, resulting in more informed and effective decision-making and improved governance.”
Charity providing counselling for bereavement
Charity stories
Read our Mentoring charity story with Fun 4 Young People. You can also find out more about our Mentoring service.
Charity story - Fun 4 Young People
