Blog 5 - Mentorship Reflection

1. Mentorship question: Describe your experience in how you found your mentorship?  If you haven't found one yet, describe your experience so far in the search of a mentor.

I found my mentorship at the volunteer place Pomona Valley Habitat for Humanity ReStore. Previously, I wanted to do something along the lines of logistics and supply planning, but no one was willing to mentor a high school student who wasn't eighteen, so I just shrugged that off. Going back to the finding of my mentorship, I found myself in a good, friendly, supportive environment where I learned lots of things such as basics on customer service, how to tie certain knots, how to properly lift heavy furniture and appliances with minimal effort, and how to respect other co-workers in a productive environment. Learning life skills at the ReStore is one of the main reasons why I was reeled into considering the managers as future mentors. The two of them other other co-workers taught me so much and I learned, which is why I only thought it would make more sense to do a project involving them and the things they personally taught me how to do.

2. Research question: What has been your most important article you have read so far and why?

"The Power of Conversational Leadership" by Carmen Nobel from Harvard Business School is hands down my most important article read. This article is just extremely insightful on how to talk to people on lower ranking. The quote written in this article, "having communication that goes bottom-up is just as important as having communication that goes top-down" stands out to me because it's basically saying employees should be able to converse smoothly with their managers and vice versa. It's perfect when you have a synergy of lower employees opening up to their bosses sincerely and expressing their views without repercussions. The article further goes into four key points: intimacy, interactivity, inclusion, and intentionality. Intimacy, in a nutshell, is all about trust and in the manager viewpoint, instilling trust in your workers and having them trust you is just powerful. It shows an investment of emotion. Interactivity is about being able to speak to multiple people through multiple outlets effectively. Networking is one term for this. The more you network, the more knowledge and resources you have access to. Inclusion outlines that you are giving your workers the freedom to give their opinions and go from there. Intentionality explains that it's all about telling your workers the vision you have and keeping everyone focused on the goals ahead. Power in unity is truly an amazing thing in the world of management.