People Management and Mentorship
By Shirley Wu
The Stepping Stone, May 2024
Good leadership calls for both effective people management and mentorship. People management places emphasis on day-to-day work and on-the-job training, while mentorship focuses on career advice and advocacy of opportunities for career and personal development. In the transition from individual contributor to manager, most people focus on people management. However, it is crucial to recognize the complementary nature of the two approaches. Combining people management and mentorship together helps create positive and open environments and improve employee engagement and productivity.
What is People Management?
The goal of people management is to develop and implement strategies to effectively lead and motivate employees to achieve organizational goals.
There are two basic building blocks in building an engaged team: goal setting and performance review.
Goal Setting
Establishing and clarifying expectations (priorities, milestones, knowledge, skills set, to name a few) help establish mutual understanding in the manager-employee relationship. Goals often cover individual, team, and company objectives. Individual goals help establish context and a feedback loop for the day-to-day work. Setting the expectation up front not only prevents miscommunication and misunderstanding, it allows for more independent thinking from the employee in solving problems. When managing a team, the goals should help establish what success looks like for the project team and how the company’s vision/mission/values are supported through the individual and team engagements.
A useful framework of goal setting is the SMART framework which consists of five elements in any goal for ensuring actionable and practical steps for success:
- Specific: what to accomplish, who is responsible, how to accomplish
- Measurable: quantifiable targets to track the progress
- Achievable: realistic and challenging for career progression
- Relevant: contribute and support the common goal of the team/company
- Time-bound: timeline well-defined in both short and long term
Performance Feedback
People managers should aim to actively provide feedback, both positive and constructive, and celebrate successes to make people feel valued. Constructive feedback is particularly important as it helps employees improve. To be constructive, feedback should be presented in a positive way that is easy to understand, followed up with ideas for how to improve and a conversation about a plan for moving forward. Key considerations for feedback deliverables include clear objectives, validity and reliability, and fairness and equity. Below are the suggested do’s and don’ts for feedback delivery:
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Key Considerations |
Do’s |
Don’ts |
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Clear Objectives |
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Validity and Reliability |
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Fairness and Equity |
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It is important to keep in mind the skill level of staff when managing performance. Maximum outcome is unlocked only if influencing behaviors based on performance readiness. Experience level does not necessarily correlate with readiness for every single task, such as problem-solving vs. preparing for big meetings.
What is Mentorship?
Mentorship is a formal or informal relationship between a more experienced and knowledgeable person (the mentor) and a less experienced person (the mentee). The role of a mentor is to provide guidance, advice, resources, and support to enhance and guide the mentee’s career and goal achievement. The mentor also serves as a role model and support system for the mentee.
Some companies have formal mentorship programs where mentors and mentees from different teams are matched. However, any people manager should aim to provide mentorship to their direct reports for more effective talent management, since the people manager knows the person/situation the best and can engage in conversations that align with the circumstances. For a people manager to be a good mentor, one needs to have an open mind and be ready to “examine” the situation from as many perspectives as possible.
The skill development as a mentor is highly overlapping with leadership development. To be a good mentor, one needs to ask open-ended questions and listen actively. These two skills are not necessarily the focus on goal setting/performance feedback, particularly when the objectives in goal setting/performance feedback are oriented towards day-to-day work. The essence of good mentorship is empathy and getting to know the mentee well to provide support and caring in career development.
Ask Open-ended Questions
Open-ended questions are those begin with “what,” “why” and “how,” and cannot be answered with a simple “yes” or “no” response. Using “why” is discouraged, as it tends to be heard as a challenge, and may come across as aggressive/criticizing. Asking open-ended questions is very much like peeling the layers of an onion, discovering the core or root cause of something by gradually narrowing the focus.
Examples of open-ended questions:
- What would you do differently if you faced the same situation again?
- What support do you need from the team to reach the goal?
- How do you think the team/others perceived your actions?
- What are the benefits of doing things this way?
- Who could have helped you in this situation?
Active Listening
Active listening is a technique that requires the listener to fully concentrate, understand, respond and then remember what is being said. The goal is to go beyond the words said and fully comprehend the intent from the other side. Instead of planning your next response throughout the conversation, you need to be fully engaged in understanding what the other party is saying. This is an important skill for a mentor in order to develop empathy with the mentee.
Putting it Together: Talent Retention and Employee Engagement
When combining people management and mentorship, the manager can support employee development through the potential dimensions:
- Low potential: employee is either at full capacity or has lack of motivation.
- Medium potential: the employee can develop further in their current role.
- High potential: the employee performs well beyond the expectations of their position and responsibilities. They naturally and eagerly take on leadership roles, and are ready for a higher position.
Understanding the technical performance through people management and the personal aspiration and limitations through mentorship allows for a more accurate assessment of one’s possibility in the work environment.
Looking at the potential scale is helpful for a few different areas:
- Identifying High-Potential Employees: this allows organizations to invest in the development of these employees and plan for their future career development.
- Succession Planning: Can be used to identify potential successors for key positions in the company. In this way, companies can plan for leadership transitions and ensure continuity in key positions.
- Talent Retention: By identifying employees with high potential and providing them with development opportunities, companies can increase employee engagement and retention.
The potential dimensions above focus on looking beyond today, while a simple performance assessment emphasizes the current state. Team management requires the people manager to actively plan ahead for the future, and it can be done effectively only if the manager has people management and mentorship in mind at the same time.
Statements of fact and opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors and are not necessarily those of the Society of Actuaries, the editors, or the respective authors’ employers.
Shirley Wu, FSA, MAAA, is a principal and consulting actuary with Milliman’s Financial Risk Management practice in Chicago. She can be reached at shirley.wu@milliman.com or via LinkedIn.