Maybe a college contact connected you with your first internship, or an experienced colleague helped you at work prepare for a promotion.
Most of us in the business world have started at the bottom and are ghana whatsapp number data 5 million gradually moving up the ladder. It is true that we often do not do it alone, we have participated in a mentoring process. I can attest to this.
Mentoring is a reciprocal and collaborative voluntary relationship that most often occurs between a senior and junior employee for the mentoree's professional growth, learning, and development.
Often, the mentor and mentee are internal to an organization, and the emphasis is on the organization's goals, culture, and professional development advice.
Mentors often act as role models for their mentees and provide guidance to help them achieve their goals.
Mentoring can be formal or informal.
In an informal setting, mentees set goals, but they are generally not measurable and the relationships are unstructured. For a formal mentoring relationship, there are defined and established actionable and measurable goals with specific requirements.
Being a mentor involves being available to support and advise someone when they need it, providing that support in a way that makes sense to them, and always keeping that person's best interests in mind.
Take a minute to think about the best mentor you've ever had.
This doesn’t have to be someone at work, although it certainly could be. But mentors come in all shapes and sizes: they can be your manager, a colleague, a parent, a friend, a coach, a college professor… anyone who has been a particularly excellent advisor at some point in your life.
Now, think about what made you stand out. Was it the example they set? Did you feel like they really understood your communication style, your work style, or your goals? That they always seemed to point you to the right resources or give you the right advice when you needed it?
At some point in your life (and, if you're lucky, many times), you will find yourself playing the role of mentor to someone, somewhere.
It can be both exciting and a little confusing. What exactly does it mean to be someone's mentor and how can you really stand out?
Let's look at what mentoring is, its importance, what a mentor is, including the three main types of mentors: peer mentors, career mentors, and life mentors.
Next, we'll go over 12 tips for being an amazing mentor.
mentoring
What is mentoring?
Mentoring is a nurturing relationship that supports learning and experimentation and helps people develop their potential.
A mentoring relationship is one in which both mentor and mentee recognize the need for personal development. Successful mentoring is based on trust and confidentiality.
Mentoring is a semi-structured guidance system whereby one person shares their knowledge, skills and experience to help others progress in their own lives and careers.
Mentors must be easily accessible and prepared to offer help when needed, within agreed limits.
Mentors often have their own mentors and in turn their mentees may wish to 'give something back' and become mentors themselves - it is a chain to 'pass on' good practice so that the benefits can be spread widely.
Mentoring can be a short-term arrangement until the original reason for the partnership is fulfilled (or ceases), or it can last for many years.
Mentoring is more than just 'giving advice', or passing on what your experience was in a particular area or situation. It is about motivating and empowering the other person to identify their own problems and goals, and helping them find ways to solve or achieve them, not by doing it for them or expecting them to 'do it the way I did it', but by understanding and respecting different ways of working.
Mentoring is not counselling or therapy, although the mentor may help the mentee access more specialised avenues of help if it becomes clear that this would be the best way forward.
Mentoring Definitions
“Mentoring is for the mentee. Above all, for the mentee’s mind. I believe that mentoring needs to focus on and develop the mentee’s best independent thinking about their work, their career, their life, their dreams. The mentor’s perspective is an important ingredient in this special relationship. But it is nurtured. It is not the party” – (Kline 2009)
“To help and support people to manage their own learning in order to maximise their potential, develop their skills, improve their performance and become the person they want to be” – (Parsloe 1992)
“Off-line assistance from one person to another in making significant transitions in knowledge, work, or thinking” – (Megginson and Clutterbuck 1995)
“A learning relationship that helps people take charge of their own development, unleash their potential and achieve outcomes they value” – (Connor and Pokora 2007)
Why is mentoring important?
A good mentor can help the mentee be more effective at work, learn new skills, develop greater confidence, and make better decisions for overall career growth.
Mentors also report many benefits, including the satisfaction of seeing others develop; expanded generational and cultural perspectives; strengthening technical, leadership , and interpersonal skills; and continuing to experience new ideas and insights.
