Mentoring
Why mentoring is
making a comeback
The best thing you can do for your career right now? Find a mentor, become a mentor or try reverse mentoring. Giving, after all, is receiving.
Mentoring
Why mentoring is
making a comeback
The best thing you can do for your career right now? Find a mentor, become a mentor or try reverse mentoring. Giving, after all, is receiving.
Mentoring
Why mentoring is making a comeback
The best thing you can do for your career right now? Find a mentor, become a mentor or try reverse mentoring. Giving, after all, is receiving
Finding the right mentor for you
1. Just because someone is at the top of their game doesn’t mean they are the best mentor for you.
Like a relationship, there also has to be that certain spark. Your choice of a mentor affects your success and happiness, so find one that you can relate to and who shares your goals and understands your priorities.
2. Be clear about what it is you want your mentor to help you with.
Is it longer term career goals or specific day to day issues? Agree when you meet with them what you would like to get out of each session – coming away with two or three actions points should be more than enough.
3. If you can’t find your ideal mentor don’t dismiss the wisdom that can be found in books.
Obviously it’s a different experience than personal one-to-one mentoring, but the boom in self- help literature means there is something for everyone. Try the number one best seller Girl Stop Apologizing: A Shame-Free Plan for Embracing and Achieving Your Goals by Rachel Hollis, founder of a multi-million dollar media company. It’s available on audio as well as print. Perfect for your commute or workout.
Finding the right mentor for you
1. Just because someone is at the top of their game doesn’t
mean they are the best mentor for you.
Like a relationship, there also has to be that certain spark. Your choice of a mentor affects your success and happiness, so find one that you can relate to and who shares your goals and understands your priorities.
2. Be clear about what it is you want your mentor to help you with.
Is it longer term career goals or specific day to day issues? Agree when you meet with them what you would like to get out of each session – coming away with two or three actions points should be more than enough.
3. If you can’t find your ideal mentor don’t dismiss the wisdom that
can be found in books.
Obviously it’s a different experience than personal one-to-one mentoring, but the boom in self- help literature means there is something for everyone. Try the number one best seller Girl Stop Apologizing: A Shame-Free Plan for Embracing and Achieving Your Goals by Rachel Hollis, founder of a multi-million dollar media company. It’s available on audio as well as print. Perfect for your commute or workout.
Ask a female leader how she’s got to where she is, and the chances are she’ll list an array of people, from former bosses and colleagues, to family and friends, who have helped her along the way. But surprisingly, according to studies only 63% of women say they have done it with the help of a mentor.
Given that mentoring has been one of the career buzzwords of the 21st century, some women seem to be missing out. Mentors should provide a vital step up the ladder, but is the reality a confusing commitment with both sides unsure of what they are getting out of it? Does it give you a lifelong ally and friend or sentence you to a series of difficult coffees with a senior person at your company, worried about how honest you can be? Or maybe they’re a short cut to meeting people of influence or a semi-counselling session?
With the growth in women’s networking groups and members clubs putting paid to the lie about women bosses pulling up the ladder behind them, now is the time to revisit whether you could benefit from a mentor to help you navigate your work-life. Or maybe you’re ready to Pay It Forward and become one yourself. Perhaps you could benefit from the input of a junior member of your team who can bring you up to speed with the latest trends and You Tube obsessions?
Ask a female leader how she’s got to where she is, and the chances are she’ll list an array of people, from former bosses and colleagues, to family and friends, who have helped her along the way. But surprisingly, according to studies only 63% of women say they have done it with the help of a mentor.
Given that mentoring has been one of the career buzzwords of the 21st century, some women seem to be missing out. Mentors should provide a vital step up the ladder, but is the reality a confusing commitment with both sides unsure of what they are getting out of it? Does it give you a lifelong ally and friend or sentence you to a series of difficult coffees with a senior person at your company, worried about how honest you can be? Or maybe they’re a short cut to meeting people of influence or a semi-counselling session?
With the growth in women’s networking groups and members clubs putting paid to the lie about women bosses pulling up the ladder behind them, now is the time to revisit whether you could benefit from a mentor to help you navigate your work-life. Or maybe you’re ready to Pay It Forward and become one yourself. Perhaps you could benefit from the input of a junior member of your team who can bring you up to speed with the latest trends and You Tube obsessions?
‘The most impactful mentors
give challenging and specific
feedback that most would
shy away from.’
‘The most impactful mentors
give challenging and specific
feedback that most would
shy away from.’
Lucy Parsons, Strategic Marketing and Communications Lead for Women Ahead and Moving Ahead, a UK company that promotes gender diversity and the power of mentoring, says that mentoring and being mentored should be equally beneficial to both sides. That can be peer-to-peer mentoring; mentoring within your own company; inter-company mentoring; being mentored by men and women or reverse mentoring, where a junior mentor is paired with a more senior mentee encouraging cross-generational collaboration. “Anybody can be a mentor – there are benefits of having a different kind of perspective and advice,’ she says. ‘A mentor’s role is to guide, challenge, support and inspire but it doesn’t need to be prescriptive.’
Her company has recently developed programmes for mentoring between elite athletes and the world of business. The athletes benefit from building contacts out of sport, developing business skills and learning from the experience of others. ‘No matter what our choice of career, we can all benefit profoundly from escaping our silos and engaging with different perspectives,” she says.
To find a mentor, the first step would be approaching your HR team to see if someone within your company might be a good match, or if your industry body has any formal schemes. Perhaps there’s someone you particularly admire or a professional you’re following on social media or have seen at speaking events? Remember though, asking a busy stranger out of the blue is unlikely to work as they probably have many such requests. But if you can get an introduction or create an interaction by commenting on their social media postings and explaining why they are such a role model for you, that could be the key.
On the practical side, you could get together three or four times a year, once in a blue moon when you are having a career crisis, or every 4-6 weeks for a period of a year. Executive coach Nanette Gibb explains that a mentor is not there to be your buddy. ‘They are giving up valuable time to share their thinking, perspective and wisdom. In return they will want to see you have commitment. If you ask someone to be your mentor it is important that you both talk through some kind of terms of engagement – what’s the purpose, how often will you meet, how will outcomes be captured and followed up. Also really think about how open you are as a mentee to being challenged. The most impactful mentors build your self-belief and give honest, challenging and specific feedback that most would shy away from.”
Lucy Parsons, Strategic Marketing and Communications Lead for Women Ahead and Moving Ahead, a UK company that promotes gender diversity and the power of mentoring, says that mentoring and being mentored should be equally beneficial to both sides. That can be peer-to-peer mentoring; mentoring within your own company; inter-company mentoring; being mentored by men and women or reverse mentoring, where a junior mentor is paired with a more senior mentee encouraging cross-generational collaboration. “Anybody can be a mentor – there are benefits of having a different kind of perspective and advice,’ she says. ‘A mentor’s role is to guide, challenge, support and inspire but it doesn’t need to be prescriptive.’
Her company has recently developed programmes for mentoring between elite athletes and the world of business. The athletes benefit from building contacts out of sport, developing business skills and learning from the experience of others. ‘No matter what our choice of career, we can all benefit profoundly from escaping our silos and engaging with different perspectives,” she says.
To find a mentor, the first step would be approaching your HR team to see if someone within your company might be a good match, or if your industry body has any formal schemes. Perhaps there’s someone you particularly admire or a professional you’re following on social media or have seen at speaking events? Remember though, asking a busy stranger out of the blue is unlikely to work as they probably have many such requests. But if you can get an introduction or create an interaction by commenting on their social media postings and explaining why they are such a role model for you, that could be the key.
On the practical side, you could get together three or four times a year, once in a blue moon when you are having a career crisis, or every 4-6 weeks for a period of a year. Executive coach Nanette Gibb explains that a mentor is not there to be your buddy. ‘They are giving up valuable time to share their thinking, perspective and wisdom. In return they will want to see you have commitment. If you ask someone to be your mentor it is important that you both talk through some kind of terms of engagement – what’s the purpose, how often will you meet, how will outcomes be captured and followed up. Also really think about how open you are as a mentee to being challenged. The most impactful mentors build your self-belief and give honest, challenging and specific feedback that most would shy away from.”
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Torie Chilcott, co-founder of digital consultancy Paddles started her career in TV and then moved into the tech sector where she had to learn new skills fast. ‘Not everyone talks in the same way and people in tech-driven businesses have their own dialogue and specific knowledge,’ Torie explains. ‘Some of the younger members of staff were brilliant at teaching me when I first came into the business. It wasn’t an official mentoring situation but I think they enjoyed the fact that they were educating me. It definitely had an effect on the big decisions we were making as an organisation.”
Torie also built an unofficial advisory relationship with another business woman who specialises in helping brands stand out. “I heard her talk and she was awesome so I approached her and said I loved your talk, can I buy you a drink or a cup of coffee? We had coffee and she said she would help me but wanted me to help her too with some media advice. She’s actually younger than me but it’s working really well. I didn’t formally ask her to mentor me as that might have put her off.’
According to research in the US, workers who have mentors within their company earn more, fit company culture better, are more productive and more likely to get promotion. They are also more likely to stay with the company longer, benefitting both themselves and their employer. So, what are you waiting for?
Torie Chilcott, co-founder of digital consultancy Paddles started her career in TV and then moved into the tech sector where she had to learn new skills fast. ‘Not everyone talks in the same way and people in tech-driven businesses have their own dialogue and specific knowledge,’ Torie explains. ‘Some of the younger members of staff were brilliant at teaching me when I first came into the business. It wasn’t an official mentoring situation but I think they enjoyed the fact that they were educating me. It definitely had an effect on the big decisions we were making as an organisation.”
Torie also built an unofficial advisory relationship with another business woman who specialises in helping brands stand out. “I heard her talk and she was awesome so I approached her and said I loved your talk, can I buy you a drink or a cup of coffee? We had coffee and she said she would help me but wanted me to help her too with some media advice. She’s actually younger than me but it’s working really well. I didn’t formally ask her to mentor me as that might have put her off.’
According to research in the US, workers who have mentors within their company earn more, fit company culture better, are more productive and more likely to get promotion. They are also more likely to stay with the company longer, benefitting both themselves and their employer. So, what are you waiting for?
