Parents parent
Managers manage
Mentors mentor
Whether you are a parent, manager, or coach, reversing your role can be rather, well…eye opening and quite rewarding!
Though I am not a parent, younger relatives have parented me by providing me (re)new(ed) insights. The 20+ year olds have taught the Dose to text. Thanks to the toddlers, my soul and spirit have relearned the value of coloring and playing with toys. These younger ones strut their stuff and the Dose gets enlightened!
As a manager I assist my employees with their work, help them succeed, and empower them to grow professionally. To be effective I also need to tell my employees when to “manage up”… meaning help themselves by helping me!
And now the Dose knows the benefit of allowing, when appropriate, my protégée to mentor me… basically to reverse roles. Seeing that she has first hand experience of what it’s like to be mentored, my protégée can and wants to mentor me, to give back and demonstrate her life coaching skills. Sometimes the Dose needs a dose of her own medicine… help from others!
Reverse roles… it may be counterintuitive, so think differently and try it!