Leadership

Mentoring always creates expectations for both parties involved, and it is important as both a mentor to understand which of those expectations you should reasonably expect to fulfil. While many believe that having a strong mentoring program within your business is most beneficial in improving workplace culture, how can you be sure there are no misunderstandings or disappointment, when it is felt by either party that expectations are not being met? 

We look at some tips to help you work out what is reasonable or unreasonable and how to set boundaries.

In the beginning

Before clarifying your mentor relationship with the person you’re mentoring, you should seek to answer some basic questions yourself. Entering into the initial mutual discussion understanding your own expectations and what you hope to achieve, as well as defining what you expect to be offered from the mentoring relationship will give you a good starting point. Once done you will be better placed to have the critical mentor meeting as you embark on the program. 

Understanding Expectations

Seek to answer these questions:

• What do I expect of the other party?
• What do I think they expect of me?
• What are my expectations of the mentoring program?
• What should the mentor expect of the mentored person’s immediate manager to support them to succeed in the program?

Once you have the answers, you have made progress to understand your own expectations. You should then seek to align these with your counterpart.

At the outset of the mentoring process sit down with the person you’re mentoring and discuss the expectations you have from the relationship, before you progress any further.  As the mentor you should lead the conversation, but you must allow space for the other person to articulate their needs and expectations.

Following these three steps will help you cover some of the key areas you need to clarify:

1. As the mentor, state your expectations, and allow the other person to ask questions and clarify what is offered and what your expectation means.
2. As a mentor you are seeking agreement on the expectation. Agreeing a common definition and understanding for every aspect of the mentoring partnership in advance will avoid potential confusion or feelings of resentment later through the mentoring program.
3. If you cannot agree on any of the expectations or feel that they are not realistic at this time or are not appropriate, you can mutually decide to put them to one side to be revisited at a future time. As the program moves forward there may be a chance for agreement later on or for a mutually agreed adjustment.

As the mentor you are there to guide the person you’re mentoring through the targets and make progress as expected. This role is often used to foster career development, which is of benefit to both parties enabling them to grow within the business and as a person. However, sometimes employees may not progress in as short a time as you think they should, which could cause anxiety on both sides.  Understanding how to mentor an anxious employee is a useful skill to have, allowing you to manage their expectations and your own, so that things do not become problematic.  

Whether you are curious or aspiring to live like the rich, this article will give you a few hints on how to become rich yourself.

Perhaps you’re just curious, perhaps you want to visit the richest places in the world, or perhaps you aspire to be so rich you can live amongst High-Net Worth Individuals (HNWI) – you never know you might find an angel investor amongst them for your small business. Whatever the case, we’re going to look at the richest places in the world to live.

We often read in the news about the richest 1% in the world, and more often than not we don’t get a ton of information because that amount of money buys you privacy and some might say, control over the press as well. However, there are certain things we can know, such as the places the richest people live. Not exact addresses of course, but areas where you find a high amount of rich people.

How Rich Are These People?

The richest 1% doesn’t mean that much, until you hear that not too long from now, those 1% will own more between them, than the rest of the world put together. This is a wealth that accounts for complete wealth, not the amount they earn. So a person’s wealth would be calculated by adding up all their assets minus any money they owe on mortgages and other different types of loans. We think of these people as having millions or billions, like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, but actually, anyone with over £530,000 counts as that 1% so it could just be someone who owns a few houses, or who has paid off their mortgage and has a few other assets. It’s hard for many ordinary people to image having that much money especially when living month-to-month and having to rely on credit cards, short-term loans or loans for bad credit history. According to finance specialist Solution Loans, many young people are even having to rely on parents to buy their first home and taking out guarantor loans so these super rich really do live in a differnet world.

These top 1% are mostly spread amongst 4 different countries in the world, with the US being inhabited by 18 million, France being inhabited by 3.5 million, the UK being inhabited by 2.9 million and Germany being inhabited by 2.8 million of the wealthiest few.

Germany is thought to be at the bottom of the list because less people own homes there.

Following these top four, both Japan and China have people in the 1% living there, with 1.5 million in China.

The country with the most HNWI in the top 1% in comparison to its overall population is Switzerland where one in ten people have assets worth over £635,000.

Looking To Join The 1%?

If you are looking to join the 1% in their wealth, there are lots of ways to get there. According to statistics this year, the highest paying jobs in the world are:

• Solutions Architect who earns around £95,000
• IT Manager who earns around £95,000
• Integrated Circuit Design Engineer who earns around £100,000
• Software Architect who earns around £101,000
• Strategy Manager who earns around £103,000
• Pharmacy Manager who earns around £103,000
• Software Development Manager who earns around £104,000
• Research And Development Manager who earns around £112,000
• Lawyer who earns around £114,000
• Surgeon who earns around £143,000

There are of course endless entrepreneurial opportunities to take advantage of, such as vlogging which could turn you into a millionaire within a year if you do it right. Looking to invest money? Apparently, gold is the best investment at the moment because it has kept the same value since time began.

Good Luck with your ventures!