Post 12 – Mentoring
According to the old saying, “no man is an island.” This is a particularly good thing to remember in business. You are probably not the first to be in the position you are in. Other people have experienced the issue you are facing or, at least, have a good grasp on ways you might manage any issue. This is why you need to have a mentor.
Read any interview with a successful businessperson and you will find they talk about the people that helped them get to that success. This is not to say they had success handed to them. They worked hard. But they were guided. They sought and took advice. They questioned and explored. A good mentor is like the GPS in the car. They won’t drive you to where you are going, but they will give you the direction you need to get there.
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It might be someone above you in your company. It might be someone in a different company. The mentor who helped me most was actually a good friend of my father. While not exactly in the same area of business as I was, his knowledge of people and how to establish successful work relationships was invaluable to me as I began my working life.
Your mentor should be someone with extensive experience and knowledge. They can advise and guide you on a range of matters. And don’t think of mentoring as an exclusive arrangement. Mentoring can easily occur in a group environment. Some of the best discussions I had with the mentor I mentioned earlier were over a meal with both our families. Everyone was able to contribute but be guided by his wealth of
To be a good mentor you have to have great qualities like being helpful and being really good at giving good constructive criticism. Whomever you're mentoring should receive information that is both positive and negative. You want to makes sure you give pros and cons so that your mentee can learn from them. (Patterson) Some social activities that you can do in mentoring programs include talking about life experiences, having lunch together, and visiting the mentor's home for a bonding experience. (Wexler) Although most mentoring programs usually have short durations and are claimed to be a “waste of money,” they are beneficial to girls because they prevent peer pressure, diseases, and pregnancies; encourage girls to be more mannerable, respectful, and ladylike; and results in kids being more likely to graduate high school and attend college.
Mentoring: is the process of a more experienced person advising and guiding a less experienced (and usually younger) person, typically a colleague.
Mentoring involves a manager passing on his/her knowledge and expertise to an employee. Typically, the employee has a mentor who is at management level but not directly involved in his or her work area, so that issue s can be discussed in an impartial and confidential manner.
Mentors are people who provide support, strength, and inspiration. Many people have a mentor in their life that they aspire to be like, and seek out for guidance. Mentors play a big role in many lives, including Junior's from The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. Some of the biggest mentors for Junior are his parents, his Wellpinit teacher Mr. P and his Rearden basketball coach. If it weren't for these mentors inspiration and support, Junior wouldn't have taken some of the risks he does.
Clutterbuck & Megginson (1999, p.17) describe mentoring as being like ‘standing in front of a mirror with a trusted other, who can help you see things that you do not know how to see, or that have become too familiar for you to notice’. It is a helping relationship between an individual with potential and an individual with expertise. This multi-dimensional relationship is a partnership between those in similar roles, who can support each other. A number of roles of the mentor have been listed by Bolton (2010, p.193): role model, enabler, teacher, encourager, counsellor, befriender, facilitator, coach, confidante, supporter and ‘un-learner’. To be successful roles and responsibilities of those involved need to be clear and they need to be matched to each other and understand expectations of them.
What does a mentor do? It gives advice. The mythological archetype is the I picked was mentor. Mythological is imaginary and fictitious, and archetype is the original pattern or model from which all things of the same kind are copied. In the novel Tangerine, Luis is the mentor in three ways.
"I found mentors in two of my early companies, both male and female managers, who 'taught me the ropes ' in an informal sense by giving me inside information about the company, certain executives-and even such practical things as how to conduct business travel and handle an expense account," she says.
Reflect on the type of mentor who could be of assistance to you and how you might select
A mentor is someone we all have whether it's your parents, friends, or even a total stranger! What makes them all the same? They all have great qualities. It could be that one of them happens to be an extraordinary listener or ]they might have great wisdom and patience. When you are looking for a great mentor, you are going to want someone with patience, determination, and listens
My mentor would have to probably be my sister. She has been through alot, good and bad. And that is all that has made her very strong. She has 4 daughters and she is always there for them helping them out as much as possible, and she then yet still tries to help everyone out as much as possible.
It takes a lot of commitment to be a mentor, an appropriate meeting time needs to be discussed between mentor and mentee so that it doesn't conflict with family, school, and/or social life. Mentors are usually provided for: troubled teens, young children with busy parents that work, children or teens with special needs such as Autism or ADHD, or anyone under or over the age of 18 who needs to have one on one time with someone they trust and can talk to confidentially.
Generally, a mentor is pictured as a “crusty old man who could wield magic and always had a word of advice for the protagonist” (Archetypes in a Hero’s Journey http://members.optusnet.com.au/~mgoodin68/archtype.htm). Mentors will not necessarily be another human, but may also be in a form of another animal, object or force of nature. In a few stories, the Hero would have started will some previous experience and already have a self-conscious ‘mentor’. In the Hobbit, the main mentor would be Gandalf. His advice to Bilbo and the dwarves had much given them plenty of advice for their upcoming journey. Other mentors include Beorn, who had given the group of adventurers a place to sleep and had replenished their supplies, as well as the Spiders, who had taught Bilbo to use his head to outsmart the spiders and free the
If I were to walk outside right now and ask any person on the street who his or her mentor is, the response is almost undoubtable a person who is more accomplished than him. Someone with years of experiences, numerous accolades, and an incredible drive to earn his prestige.
Mentoring for the mentor is about challenging himself to perform to greater capabilities while nurturing a mentee and stretching them to realise their full potential. Mentors counsel, tutor and guide their mentees in developing themselves.
A Learning Mentor is a relatively new concept in the field of education and is used within schools to support them in raising standards.