鈥淒o you have a few minutes so I could run something by you?鈥

These words come out of my mouth quite frequently to certain people.聽I鈥檝e found that humility can be my greatest friend when I鈥檓 faced with difficult decisions.聽Let鈥檚 be frank about it 鈥 most times the decisions are difficult because we don鈥檛 know which way to go.

If you鈥檝e lost direction or need help with progressing in the right direction, you could do worse than turn to coaching or mentoring. There鈥檚 a range of support opportunities available, which my friend , a qualified relationship coach and strategy consultant, pictures as a continuum:

鈥淎t one end there is Counselling 鈥 empathetically listening and gently helping the individual to find their own voice. This is often non-directional and non-outcome focussed.

At the other end of the spectrum we have Consultancy 鈥 telling the individual what they should do.

In between these extremes, there is Coaching 鈥 helping the individual through open questioning to find their own solutions to achieve their own goals.鈥

What Neil describes as coaching, I鈥檝e also heard being referred to as mentoring. To me, the difference between coaching and mentoring is so academic that I鈥檒l use the two terms interchangeably, although it鈥檚 probably just as vexing as people assuming that translation and interpreting are two words for the same thing.

Mentoring can be formal or informal, often to do with career growth and skills development. Sometimes it can be so informal that you鈥檙e not even sure whether you have a mentor or not. What鈥檚 most energising about the process is its purpose: to help you explore what may be holding you back from fulfilling your true potential. After all, the world doesn鈥檛 need a dulled shadow of you; it needs the most fully alive version of yourself you are able to give.

Being mentored

I have benefitted from coaching/mentoring twice in my professional life: most recently five years ago when I took on the role of CEO. My key question at the time was 鈥榓m I cut out for this?鈥. Mentoring helped me examine the ideas that were limiting me or blocking me from achieving what I wanted to achieve. My biggest takeaway was that 鈥業 can do it鈥, and that in the areas where I鈥檓 not able to attain the highest level of mastery, I should build a team around me who are. That鈥檚 what I鈥檝e been working towards ever since and I鈥檓 very grateful to have such an adroit management team running Sandberg with me.

Being a mentor

Can any leader who wants to 鈥榞ive back鈥 become a mentor? You need good listening skills and the ability to delve into problems, options and solutions with your mentee, for sure. And a structured plan wouldn鈥檛 go amiss either.

A few years back, I joined Women in Localization鈥檚 , which pairs established localisation industry professionals with those seeking guidance for their careers in the field.

One of my mentees was Marta (not her real name), a thirty-something translator who was questioning whether she wanted to translate any more. Having travelled extensively 鈥 which freelance translating suited excellently 鈥 she鈥檇 settled down and now lived permanently abroad. With no intention of returning to her native country, she felt her language and cultural skills would eventually fade, and she wanted a job that didn鈥檛 rely on her native language.

Marta had tried her hand at content creation, but felt it was not for her. She鈥檇 worked for a while as a data analyst and concluded the same. She had enrolled on a master鈥檚 degree programme in localisation hoping that it would lead to an in-house position at a language services company. But studying just wasn鈥檛 as inspiring as it had been on her bachelor鈥檚 course.

Over the months, we explored Marta鈥檚 interest in taking up a managerial role. I was able to assure her it wasn鈥檛 unrealistic to consider a career change in her thirties 鈥 I鈥檇 done the same. We spent time figuring out who she was as a person, and she finally concluded that although she was capable of performing as a part of a team or company, what she really wanted was to do her own thing.

When I last spoke with Marta, she was thinking of becoming an author in a field that really interested her, perhaps getting a book published one day. She said the mentorship had definitely been worth it, and even though I鈥檇 often lamented our lack of structure and milestones, for her just being able to talk to someone from the same industry but at a different stage in their career had been valuable.

Reversing the roles

Reverse mentoring is the opposite of traditional mentoring. Instead of a senior staff member imparting their wisdom to a junior recruit, the senior colleague listens and learns from the junior one. The primary objective is to enable senior managers to stay in touch with their organisation and the outside world, which often means educating them about something like technology or diversity. But the advantages go both ways, as more junior co-workers have an opportunity to understand and be heard by their senior colleagues.

I remember bringing the idea up at our management meeting a few years ago, and the first response from my peers was: 鈥楽o Anu, are you admitting you can鈥檛 keep up?鈥. There lies the rub: reverse mentoring cannot be implemented in an organisation without humility.

A while back, I chatted to Texan coach and team-builder . Having seen her in action, I know what an awesome mentor she can be. We were comparing notes and discovered that our respective experiences with structured coaching programmes had sometimes left us flat. Shelly surmised that perhaps the best mentoring right now happens organically.

With that in mind, I encourage you to go and seek out a mentorship for yourself. Right now.

Seven months ago, we were all facing the global pandemic together, bracing ourselves for the challenge of saving lives. Now our experiences have diverged: different countries and regions are at different stages of the fight, battling with varying degrees of restrictions and sacrifice. We encounter discord and seemingly impossible asks, and we need to get through them without ending up exhausted and burnt out. A powerful mentorship won鈥檛 erase the trouble and chaos, but can help us find our own path amidst that chaos.

Director鈥檚 Cut, Inspiration, Leadership, Translation industry