Did you know that the term mentor originates from Homer’s Odyssey? According to the story, King Ithaca appoints his friend Mentor to look after his son Telemachus when he leaves to fight in the Trojan War. Although the term mentor is first noted in Homer’s work, historians and anthropologists have discovered that the process of mentoring was commonplace long before ancient Greek civilization in places such as Africa and many other parts of the world. When I think mentors, I often think of Yoda from Star Wars, Mr. Rogers, and my fifth grade teacher Mrs. Loftus. Who do you think of?
What is mentoring? Mentoring is a powerful way to learn a variety of personal and professional skills consisting of a confidential relationship between two individuals with the objective of proactively assisting the mentee without providing formal evaluation.
Why is mentoring important? Mentoring is essential to both your personal growth and career development because it provides a safe relationship and environment to grow, learn, and expand your skills and knowledge with someone who recognizes your strengths, challenges your weaknesses, inspires, and support you through coaching, confronting, counseling, encouraging, guiding, managing, observing, reinforcing, role modeling, and teaching. Mentoring can help you gain job and career skills, increase your network, self-esteem, job satisfaction, communication skills, ethical development, and decision making skills.
Who else benefits from mentoring? Not only do mentees benefit from mentoring, but mentors can also learn and grow from the process. Mentoring can provide many benefits to organizations including identification and development of staff; increased innovation, productivity, profit, safety and retention; and even decreased lawsuits.
What are the qualities of a good mentor? When looking for a mentor, be sure to search out individuals who are respected for their integrity; are capable of establishing relationships based on mutual trust and respect; are empathetic, enthusiastic, supportive, available, and accessible. Avoid choosing a mentor who is a friend or family member, a supervisor, teacher, or anyone who is currently in a role that evaluates you and your performance.
What can I do to be a good mentee? Be clear about your needs, listen, make time for reflection, ask questions, be open to criticism, do your homework, explore other areas of wisdom, recognize your changing needs, and remember terminating a mentoring relationship or switching to a different mentor are not signs of failure. Also, be careful of becoming too dependent on your mentor for information and decision making. Be respectful of confidentiality issues within your relationship and lastly avoid developing an intimate relationship with your mentor.
What can I do to prepare for mentoring? It’s very helpful to the mentoring process to write down your goals and concerns about the relationship; your skills, knowledge, attitudes, current challenges, expectations of self and mentor; vision, mission, and life goals.
Here are a few mentoring myths and misconceptions to keep in mind: Mentoring is something a mentor does to a mentee; one person can fulfill the role of mentor; only seasoned practitioners make good mentors; mentoring is the same as teaching, training, and coaching; mentoring relationships should last a lifetime; only the young benefit from mentoring; mentoring is based on chemistry; mentors should be older than their mentees; mentoring is always initiated by the mentor; mentors should be of the same ethnic background as their mentees; mentoring only happens on a one-to-one, long-term, face-to-face basis; and mentoring is a rare experience and only occurs for a few great people
Ask Yourself:
-What areas would you like to be mentored in?
-Who were your mentors, how did you meet them?
-Name a few people who have made you feel appreciated, special, and taught you something worthwhile.
Where can I find a mentor? Some possible places to find mentors include: university faculty or staff members, conferences and conventions, library for trade publications, your own personal network of friends and relatives, retirement centers, local organizations, businesses, and chamber of commerce offices. You might also consider contacting authors who inspire you.
Now, go out and find your mentor(s) and may the force be with you.
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