NORTH WEST BUSINESS LEADERS ASKED ‘HAVE YOU GOT THE M FACTOR’?
The search is on to find the region’s top business leaders who would like to play a role in nurturing, guiding and developing talent in business communities across England’s Northwest. As part of its recently launched Mentoring programme, the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA) is seeking business leaders with the ‘M’ Factor – the ability and desire to become a mentor for a small business in order to help develop the next generation of leaders in the region.
Launched in September 2009, the three-year programme enables senior managers of small businesses to benefit from free mentoring that will enable them to develop their leadership and management skills, aiding the growth of their business.
The largest scheme of its kind in the region dedicated specifically to meeting the needs of small businesses, Mentoring aims to match senior managers of small businesses with suitable mentors who can provide support by sharing their experiences, knowledge and wisdom. And now the NWDA is calling for the region’s most experienced business people to come forward and offer themselves as mentors for the programme.
NWDA Chief Executive, Steven Broomhead, comments:
“Strong leadership and management skills are vital to the future economic success of the region and mentoring has proved to be highly successful in helping SME leaders and managers to develop. We’re aiming to establish a total of 3,000 high quality mentoring relationships over the next three years with the help of business leaders and entrepreneurs who are willing to share their knowledge and experience in order to benefit others.”
Becoming a mentor and inspiring other small businesses can be extremely rewarding on a personal level, with research showing that it can also lead to the mentor benefiting from improved job performance, greater satisfaction, widened experience and renewed self awareness.
Organisational psychologist and experienced mentor, Mary Sherry, adds, “Business people who have benefited themselves from help and support and who are happy to share their successes – and failures – to help others succeed, are most likely to have the M Factor and make good mentors.”
“Mentors are usually people who have been successful in their chosen career and, whilst their success is borne from a passion for what they do and the courage to do it, they often state that ‘luck played its part’ and feel an obligation to ‘put back something’ as repayment. In return they benefit from a strong feeling of personal fulfilment from helping others which often results in an improvement in their own performance.”
Mentors recruited for the Mentoring programme should ideally have a minimum of three years experience at Managing Director or senior level or could be development professionals, working as a business coach or management consultant.
Mentors will be asked to deliver one-to-one mentoring on a voluntary basis and will receive a full induction and ongoing training, as well as being encouraged and assisted to further develop their mentoring abilities should they so wish. Anyone who feels they have the M Factor and is interested in becoming a mentor for the programme should contact Business Link Northwest on 0845 00 66 888 or visit www.businesslinknw.co.uk/mentoring for more information.