What is mentoring?
Mentoring is when someone is supported to develop their skills and progress by someone else who has more experience and expertise. In the workplace, an employee or work experience student will usually be paired with a mentor who will support their development.
Coaching vs mentoring
Mentoring is often confused with coaching. The key difference is that a coach will focus on improvement and performance, whereas a mentor will focus on developing specific industry skills and knowledge with their mentee.
Having a coach is useful for anyone in your business looking to reach their personal and professional goals, but mentoring is the better choice for teaching the knowledge someone needs to progress in their career.
Types of mentoring
The most common form of mentoring consists of a younger employee being mentored by an older employee. While a great form of support, there are other types of mentoring you may want to consider.
Peer mentoring is when people of a similar age or stage transfer skills and knowledge and provide support to one another. For example, someone who works in a role may offer support to someone new to the business in a similar role. Having peer mentors is a great way of encouraging learning and fostering relationships between colleagues.
Reverse mentoring is the opposite of traditional mentoring you might think of. A junior employee will mentor a senior employee, reversing the mentoring roles. It encourages employees to share their experiences and knowledge, no matter their seniority, and address any skills gaps.
So if you’re a mentor, you could be paired with anyone, from a senior leader to a new hire, so long as you have something valuable to offer them.
What does a mentor do?
David Clutterbuck, professor of coaching and mentoring, created a useful acronym to describe the role of a mentor. A mentor will:
- Manage the mentoring relationship
- Encourage their mentee
- Nurture their mentee
- Teach their mentee
- Offer mutual respect
- Respond to their mentee’s needs
Benefits of mentoring
Benefits of having a mentor
- You’ll have someone to provide advice and support
- You’ll get help identifying and achieving your goals
- You’ll gain essential skills and knowledge for your career
- You’ll gain more confidence in yourself and your ability
- You’ll expand your network through your mentor
Benefits of being a mentor
- You’ll build your skills e.g. communication and leadership
- You’ll explore different perspectives
- You’ll get fulfilment from giving back to your peers and colleagues
- You’ll have the opportunity to reflect on your own experiences and goals
- You’ll show you have what it takes to progress in your own career
Mentoring skills
Now you know why you should be a mentor, let’s look at what it takes to be one.
You’ll develop your skills in the role of a mentor, but to be a successful mentor, you should look to already have these skills and attitudes:
- Empathy
- Active listening
- Communication
- Positive thinking
- Enthusiasm
- Passion for self development and growth
- Ability to build rapport and trust
How to be a good mentor
1. Get to know your mentee
Learn about their interests, goals and challenges to explore how you can best support them through your mentoring relationship. Find out what they want to learn, show an interest and build a rapport.
2. Set expectations and objectives
Your mentoring relationship will likely be long term. To ensure you’re both progressing and using your time to focus on what’s most valuable, set out the mentoring structure. This might include the purpose and impact, timelines, actions and frequency of check-ins. It doesn’t have to be a rigid structure you always adhere to, but it will help keep you on track.
3. Give critical feedback (and be open to it)
Feedback includes the good, not just the bad. Be honest and make sure your feedback is useful. Describe how your mentee can actively improve in a specific area and praise their successes. Mentoring is a journey – ask for feedback as a mentor to ensure you and your mentee are getting the most out of it.
4. Be a good role model
You’ll be a role model for your mentee. As someone working in the same team and sector, you’ll be someone they can look up to and aspire to be. This means you should show you have the qualities they should want to build, for example having good time management or actively communicating with the wider team.
5. Encourage independent thinking
You’re here to impart wisdom and guide their decisions, not decide for them. While you can help your mentee make the best choices and avoid common mistakes, it’s best to let them lead and use their own initiative. This is how they’ll learn to confidently make decisions and grow in their career.
How to build a mentoring programme
Many organisations choose to roll out a long term mentoring programme across the business to encourage supportive relationships between colleagues. Mentoring can be used to develop anyone, from young people new to the business or the workforce to aspiring staff who want to become senior leaders and managers.
Read this best practice to start building your own mentoring scheme today:
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