By Dr. Joy Chacko | 06/25/2021
Chapter 1
Research demonstrates a significant positive relationship between quality mentoring and impacts on young people, including in their personal, academic, and professional situations. Indeed, research is clear that mentoring enhances personal development and growth and promotes social and economic opportunity for young people.
Mentorship defined
Often, for many people, life is not balanced. We live in a world consists of different creed, culture, civilization, exposures, and the likes. When it comes to acquiring knowledge, some people got it early enough, thus they broadened their mental horizon and strengthened it continuously to advance overboard to fulfill their goals. However, some people are still live under the law of accident, completely ignorant of their goals and life purpose and unique potentials. Unfortunately, they continue to live life without a clear purpose and goal. Though they have eyes without any inner eyes, sight, and no foresight. These factors seem one reason why we have mediocrity holding sway everywhere, particularly in several developing countries though no countries are an exception.
The rationale for the aforementioned is not far-fetched. Individuals, especially young individuals, were ignorantly living life without somebody to direct, inform, and guide them to that path of greatness. One might be knowledgeable, but still need the wide knowledge and wealth of experience to direct your path so that you don’t waste time on proceeding a fruitless journey, wasting energy and resources. Remember life is short, the right direction would help you reach your potential.
People who have made an outstanding impact and achieved exceptional things in life, didn’t visit that route alone, instead they took guidance from experts to achieve greatness.
Who is a mentor?
A mentor is a person who guides an inexperienced person by building trust and demonstrating positive behaviors. An experienced mentor knows that his or her role is to be responsible, reliable, knowledgeable, real, authentic, and committed to the needs of the mentee.
A mentor is a person who provides support, guidance and feedback to a person who wants to succeed in personal or professional life. Mentors are mostly those who have gone past on the same road the other person wants to be mentored is currently on, so, they are better set and strengthened with the wealth of knowledge required to assist that person. A mentor shares information about his/her career path, providing the necessary guidance, motivation, support (emotional, spiritual, or otherwise) and help when needed to the person who requires it. A mentee’s personal growth and professional development are of utmost matter to the mentor. This is the sole cornerstone for the mentor and mentee relationship.
Mentors are indeed more than role models
Some one of you may think that being a mentor means being a role model. Undoubtedly, mentors indeed supposed to be that role model in every area, such as family, work-life balance, among peers, etc. However, simply being a role model does not make you a mentor. Being a mentor signifies relating with a mentee almost consistently, giving the needed support, advice, and constructive feedback.
Types of Mentor
- Career mentor
- Business mentor
- Spiritual mentor
- Educational mentor
- Political mentor
Who is a Mentee?
A mentee is somebody who has recognized and factored in his or her specific personal, professional, spiritual, emotional, psychological goals and who holds faith in that guidance and help provided by a mentor – and being held answerable to the mentor who can assist him or her achieve the goal. A mentee is supposed to be knowledge-thirsty, goal-oriented, focused and an enthusiast of change and development.
A mentor is considered to study, and understand the mentee’s needs. The mentor must also believe that the mentee possesses exceptional qualities that will increase the mentee’s chances of benefiting from the relationship before agreeing to begin this mentorship relationship.
To have a beneficial mentorship program, the mentee must hold some excellent qualities highlighted below:
- Knowledge-driven and knowledge-thirsty
- Willingness to learn about themselves and learn from others’ experience
- Must possess strong interpersonal skills
- Must respect others time and effort
- Must possess excellent communication skills
- Must have a learning mind
- Must be open-minded, have honesty and trustworthiness
- Willingness to be mentored
- Willingness to take responsibility for their career and professional growth
- Listening skills
- Have a receptive mind for feedback and to learning from it
- Flexibility and strong initiative
- Responsible and accountable
How to Choose a Good Mentor
Having now read who a mentor and mentee is, how can a mentee select a good mentor?
Though you will find mentors in a variety of places, it often dependent on the kind of mentorship you are seeking for. You can begin by joining an informal professional, business, or religious network, especially online platforms (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.). You can join various professional associations, and carefully find a few exceptional people who you think would be of great help for your professional growth. Some mentorship programs may come with a cost and may require attending organized functions, but this should not imply you when you have a big picture outcome in mind.
If you attended a college, you can likely reach out to your school’s alumni network to see how graduates have had success in their field. Try to reach out to them, sometime they would be willing to help you.
Regardless of where you find a mentor, the most important thing is to choose the right person. Some aspects to look for in a mentor, include:
- The Mentor’s Values. It’s imperative to make sure you look out for the values of your potential mentor to know if that values align with the values that you have in mind. The mentor needs to be a person of value.
- Effective Communication. Communication is a two-way route. You cannot have an impactful mentorship relationship without effective communication. Your mentor must be able to effectively pass across relevant information for you to get the best from him or her.
- The mentor’s Personality. Personality type is also crucial in selecting a mentor. You need to study the personality to know if he or she is someone you can work with.
- Check out the mentor’s willingness to sincerely mentor you. Not all potential mentors have that mind to help or transfer over relevant knowledge. They might have vast knowledgeable and experience, but if they are not willing to share them, you could be wasting your time.
Therefore, based on the above discussions, from a best mentor, you could expect some of these characteristics:
- Vast and wide range of experience in a related or relevant field
- Approachable, jovial and unpretentious personality
- Flexible to different mentoring styles
- Knowledgeable
- Nonjudgmental and able to give constructive and candid feedback
- Good listener
- Open to different perspectives and even learning from the mentee
- Dependable and trustworthy character
- A growth mindset and learning attitude
- Skillful in developing others