The Leadership Training Activity Book: 50 Exercises

Step 3: Distribute Handouts 45.1, Are You Ready to Be a Protégé?,and 45.2, Roles

and Responsibilities of Protégés and Mentors.Discuss the roles and

responsibilities of a protégé. Use the Handout 45.2. Then ask participants

to complete Handout 45.1 before the next step.

Step 4: Distribute Handout 45.3, A Plan for Finding a Mentor,and go over seven

steps in the process:

1. Identify what you need (privately).


2. Review the characteristics most frequently found in mentors and rank
   their importance to you (privately).


3. Evaluate and select what you are looking for in a mentor.
   Have participants get into groups of 3 for this next step:


4. Create a list of potential mentors. One by one, each person explains
   what he or she is looking for in a mentor. The members of the group
   should help her/him identify some potential mentors.
   After each person has at least a short list of potential mentors,
   reassemble and open up the discussion to the total group. Ask anyone
   who is stuck trying to create a pool of candidates to summarize what
   she/he is looking for so that more suggestions can be gathered.


5. Participants should then apply their own list of criteria about what
   they want in a mentor to the list of potential mentors.


6. Now have participants form pairs to learn how to approach
   prospective mentors and sell yourself to these prospective mentors
   (Step #7). One person plays the role of the mentor, while the other
   practices how to approach a prospective mentor using the ideas on
   their handout. Then they switch roles. Each provides feedback on the
   approach used by the other person. Take a few minutes with the
   whole group to summarize what was learned.

Step 5: Review the items participants identified as being important to them in

this kind of relationship. They should be made a part of the mentor-

protégé agreement. Then draw up a sample agreement on the flipchart,

using input from participants. Explain that they should have a draft

proposal ready to discuss with their new mentor. Give them time to

rough one out. Suggest that they put the final agreement in writing.

(^268) THE LEADERSHIP TRAINING ACTIVITY BOOK