Why Is Mentoring Important

Zachary presents the mentorship as a learning partnership between mentor and mentee. This reinforces my understanding of the nature of adult learning and the notion that the mentor is less an authority figure and more of a facilitator. In my work as a mentor for special education directors, I will utilize Zachary’s four-stage approach for encouraging learning and promoting change. This reading has helped me to see mentorship as a process with distinctive components, as defined by Zachary (2012). During the preparation phase, I will focus on ensuring I fully understand the reasoning behind the mentoring relationship (Zachary 2012). I will accomplish this through personal reflection and a collaborative discussion with the mentee. I will remember that this phase sets the tone for the relationship. The next step, negotiating, is the business stage and the time when mentoring partners come to an agreement on the learning goals and define the content and process of the relationship (Zachary 2012). It is essential that during this phase I facilitate the conversation to enable a productive meeting and set measurable goals with aligned activities that will ensure they attain their goals. Part of the stage that I need to work on is creating a shared understanding of boundaries and limits. I will accomplish this through communicating the delineation between the mentor and mentee’s role and responsibilities. The third stage, the enabling phase, takes the longest amount of time because it is when the implementation of the learning occurs (Zachary 2012). During this period, I will support the mentee’s learning by communicating the goals and providing thoughtful and timely feedback and encouragement. I will ensure that additional time is dedicated to supporting the mentee’s work. Before reading this book, I was less confident during this phase and

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.

In the modern world, mentoring has long been used to help nurture and grow people. This is one way that many companies attempt to hang onto the top talent at their company. The goal is to create employees that are knowledgeable and who have the wisdom and experience to be successful at the company.

"Mentoring is a special quality, skill set and attitude," she says. "The benefits are not only between the mentor and mentee, but the future generations."

Mentors are influential, senior organizational members with advanced experience and knowledge committed to providing perception to a mentee’s career development. A mentor supports a mentee’s views of self within a work role as well as it supports the mentor’s sense of self for the valuable wisdom and experience they have to share.

Mentoring is a process where a more experience person creates a supportive relationship with an inexperienced, mostly younger person with the aim of providing information and advice. The process of mentoring must benefit both parties.

As stated in an article by Christopher Vogler “The mentor helps the hero in some way, furnishing them with important skills and advice. They may appear at important moments to help the hero get over an obstacle, then disappear. Typical mentors are old and wise. Although they may also be younger, they are still likely to be older than the hero as they offer their superior knowledge and experience in support. Perhaps once they were a young hero themselves.” (Vogler). To put in other words, a mentor is typically an older being with knowledge that provides the student with important skills and advice. I agree with the author that a mentor provides important skills and advice, which confirms my statement because a mentor provides skills to the student to better them. An example of this archetype is Micky in the movie Rocky. He is an older man with experience and knowledge that he teaches Rocky. He takes it on as his responsibility to make Rocky the best fighter he can be, and this makes Micky his mentor. This relates back to the article because Rocky receives skills and advice from his mentor like stated in the

Mentoring is relationship orientated – it provides a safe environment where the mentore shares any issues which can affect their mentors professional and personal success. Mentoring also focuses on work/life balance, self confidence and self perception.

Mentoring employs similar methods as coaching; however a more personal relationship is formed between the mentor and mentee. A mentor, as Zey (1984) writes, is ‘a person who oversees the career and development of another person, usually a junior, through teaching, counselling, providing psychological support, protecting and at times promoting or sponsoring’.

Mentors serve as a confidant, counselor, guide and advisor to a participant. They share an understanding of the organization, its mission, and the formal and informal operating processes, and share experiences which contributed to their own success, setting an example for the participant to follow. They assist the participant in career development ideas or for pursuing career opportunities. Mentors encourage participants to become more efficient and productive in their career field through self-development and other activities, and suggest appropriate training and developmental opportunities to further the progress of the participant toward leadership positions. The Mentor will provide input to the participant 's supervisor in developing their Individual Development Plan (IDP), helping the participant to set clear, realistic career goals and periodically reviews progress, making constructive suggestions on career development. Vitally important, the Mentor must ensure the mentoring relationship remains visibly and consistently professional. Mentors must ensure that their meetings are for clear purposes related to mentoring, that there is visible progress by the participant toward legitimate mentoring goals, and that office relationships between the mentor and participant

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.

Mentors are a very valuable asset, they go beyond that of a networking colleague and help guide you towards success in life both at work and outside of work. At my present job, not my practicum, I have a mentor that I talk to once in a while and she provides me with some guidance and recommendations that are not only work-related, but also life

A Learning Mentor is a relatively new concept in the field of education and is used within schools to support them in raising standards.

Accompanied with the current shift towards more organic organisation structures and more emphasis on the learning organisation, mentoring provides a more all round experience to the mentees by getting them confident with their role with the organisation. It also improves communication throughout the organisation by allowing mentees to give feedback and learn in a not so formal fashion which helps people feel more relaxed and develops the formal and informal culture of the organisation.