An urge to serve as guide to colleagues

The Life: Some managers aspire to become mentors, though they may not know where to start. Khadija Dangor, who works at NBAD in Abu Dhabi, discusses her approach.

Khadija Dangor, the head of reporting and reconciliation at National Bank of Abu Dhabi. Ravindranath K / The National
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Khadija Dangor, who joined the National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) about a year ago, has made it a point to act as a mentor to colleagues during her career. The head of reporting and reconciliation at a division of NBAD discusses how she got started and what other mentors-to-be might want to keep in mind.

How did your interest in mentoring begin?

I started off [my career] at JPMorgan on a graduate programme, and I was assigned a mentor. Often as a young graduate, you're full of energy and vibrancy, but you need someone to help you along, show you the ropes, mentor you. As we progressed, I realised I'm not getting much benefit out of [my mentor], and I naturally evolved to getting another who guided me in the direction of my career.

You then ended up at Investec, in Johannesburg, where there was no formal mentoring. What did you do there?

I was working in the finance field. I said to my manager there's [someone] who happened to be in operations department [who] gets along well with me and often comes to bounce off one or two ideas, and I'd like to mentor him. My boss at the time said "that's nice. Let's make it a formal process through HR, and we can hopefully get other people on to this kind of programme".

Soon after that started, you moved here to NBAD. How does the mentoring work here?

It started off very informally, just with some of the guys on my team. Generally, when you do a mentorship programme, it's people [who] are not your direct reports. But in this particular case, one of the gentlemen is my direct report. We have a graduate recruitment training programme in the organisation. We just got one of the trainees join us, so now I'm mentoring her as well.

What are you hoping to provide as a mentor?

It's just to provide people with reliable, practical advice. Also, sometimes people just need to confide in somebody to explain what their challenges are. As a manager, it's my duty and responsibility to lead my team, advise them, show them a career path and help them advance. Ultimately, that's my goal.

Have you spoken with HR to formalise the programme here?

I haven't. I'm so new to my role and have so many balls in the air. Maybe it's something I should think about.

Got any tips for managers who want to mentor?

In any organisation, you're always busy with your workload - but there's always time for a lunch, coffee or break. Often these informal lunches, etc., are the most effective, in my opinion. Food is such a big part of the culture.

Any other advice?

Just be honest in your approach. If you have somebody who comes to you and thinks they're an absolute superstar in their role, and the rest of the organisation or department doesn't think so, it's your responsibility to be truthful and give that negative criticism. My advice is to be open and honest in your discussion, and confidential.