Mentoring – The Brother Leader Phase

The brother leader phase is the longest phase of the True PIKE Experience, as it accounts for a members second semester as a freshman through the end of his sophomore year depending on when he joined. As with the new member education period, this is an essential timeframe for the member. In this phase the brother leader will experience a tremendous amount of growth, which will set him up for success and future opportunities within the chapter, campus and community. Your role as the mentor is critical to ensuring that your mentee strives to accomplish his educational objectives, commitments, goals and benchmarks in the brother leader phase before you graduate, which hopefully, leaves an impact on a future leader of Pi Kappa Alpha. In the subsequent sections of this blog, I will outline your role in mentoring a brother leader.

BROTHER LEADER EDUCATION: CONTENT AT A GLANCE

The brother leader educator is responsible for facilitating the brother leader educational curriculum with the brother leaders, so your role as a mentor is simple when it comes to mentoring your mentee through brother leader education. Considering that you have gone through brother leader education yourself, you will want to follow-up on the educational content covered during your monthly mentor/mentee meeting. In this role you may need to put on your Teacher hat, to ensure that your mentee is grasping the content objectives, and that you are complementing the brother leader educator’s teachings.

Some questions you could ask during your monthly meetings about brother leader education:

“Tell me what you covered this month in brother leader education?”

“What was discussed during those sessions?”

“What were your takeaways from those sessions?”

“Was there anything you were having trouble grasping? If so what?”

This list of questions is not meant exclude any other questions that might be necessary to ask about brother leader education during the meeting. Other questions should be asked, but the conversation will dictate what those questions will be based on his understanding of the brother leader education curriculum.

BROTHER LEADER OBJECTIVE

The brother leader objective is yet again simple: “to understand the benefits of the Fraternity.” As the mentor, you should always keep this objective at the forefront of your mind to ensure he is moving positively through the brother leader objective and Motivate him accordingly.

BROTHER LEADERS COMMITMENTS

As previously mentioned, the commitments are defined by the True Pike ideals. They are laid out in the guidebook in the form of a quantifiable checklist where the brother leader mentee can view his progress of accomplishing his commitments. Your role as the mentor is to evaluate his progress and put your Coaching hat on to provide feedback on how he accomplishes his commitments and Advise him on how to accomplish the rest of the commitments in the brother leader phase. Reviewing his progress on his commitments will be an ongoing process during mentor/mentee meetings.

BROTHER LEADER GOALS

At the outset of your mentee becoming a brother leader, you will want to work with him to establish S.M.A.R.T. goals at the beginning of each semester during his time as a brother leader in the True PIKE Experience. When helping him establish goals, you will have to put on your Advisor hat to help him set realistic goals. There is one goal related to his GPA for the beginning of each semester, then the rest are open goals that are ultimately dictated by the mentee. The open goals can be any combination of the commitments and/or goals that are more personal to him.

BROTHER LEADER BENCHMARKS

When working with the mentee to establish his benchmarks you will utilize various mentor skillsets depending on the benchmark. The benchmarks are meant to be specific reflection points along the way in the brother leader phase and should be completed according to the schedule below:

• Monthly Meeting 1: Discuss and establish Brother Leader Benchmarks 1-2
• Monthly Meeting 2: Discuss and establish Brother Leader Benchmarks 3-4
• Monthly Meeting 3: Discuss and establish Brother Leader Benchmarks 5-6
• Monthly Meeting 4: Discuss and establish Brother Leader Benchmarks 7-8
• Monthly Meeting 5 – End of the Brother Leader Phase: Discuss and review previously established Brother Leader Benchmarks

BROTHER LEADER PERSONAL REFLECTION

The mentee’s personal reflection will be dependent on his initiative to journal along his path through the brother leader phase. His reflection may just be thoughts about his fraternity experience thus far or may be more on the personal side. Whatever the case may be, it will ultimately be up to the mentee if he would like to share with you, the mentor, his reflections. Considering that these reflections may be personal, be sure to stress the confidentiality component of the relationship to further emphasize the trusting and open relationship. If the mentee decides to share his personal reflections, you may need to put your Counselor hat on, which will require you to just listen and not necessarily react, unless it is appropriate to do so.

If the mentee has neglected to write anything in the personal reflection section of his guidebook, it is okay, however you may just want to explain the benefits of reflection to him to encourage him to do so moving forward.

This is part nine of 10 in the mentor blog series. Be sure to check out the Mentoring a Brother Leader blog to continue your development as a mentor in your chapter.

To learn more about the Pi Kappa Alpha mentor program, be sure to look at the mentor program handbook and its accompanying resources located in the myPIKE Resource Center (myPIKE > Resource Center > Pi Kappa Alpha folder > Chapter Officer Resources folder > VP of Membership Development folder > Mentor Program folder).