A mentor is important at any stage of the game. Whether you are just beginning your career path or you are well on your way, there is always someone one step ahead who can provide invaluable guidance and wisdom. Oprah has Maya Angelou, Bill Gates has Warren Buffett and Plato had Socrates. A mentor can act as an advisor, a teacher, a sounding board or even a counselor. Some people seek to be a mentor and others seek mentors themselves. At any rate, a mentor can have a significant positive impact on professional development, personal growth and corporate success.
A mentor is usually someone who you have great respect for or even wish to model your career after. If you are looking for a career opportunity, a mentor can help you identify what types of prospects to focus on. While having a diverse skill set and confidence in your potential future performance is crucial, it is also important to remember to focus your energy on what you are passionate about. We are all capable of being passionate about multiple things, but a recruiter will notice if you apply for every job opportunity ranging from Mechanical Engineer to Charity Fundraiser. The seasoned mentor is skilled at asking introspective questions to help you identify your passions and envision your ideal working environment. Furthermore, asking your mentor questions to get a sense of their experience, education and career decisions can be useful in identifying similarities and opportunities in your own life.
A mentor can be someone within your organization that you have a strong or long-term working relationship with. This person shares their knowledge, skills and experience for your professional development. It can be through a formal coaching program or an informal advisor role. In a way, it is a form of succession planning and building future leaders from within. As Jim Collins points out in Good to Great: ‘leaders who are ambitious for their company rather than for themselves seek to develop other leaders’. Through mentoring, organizations build leaders who can sustain the company's success over time. A solid mentoring program can generate improvements in performance, communication, capability and morale for both sides of the relationship.
Having a mentor is not a one way street; being a mentor brings great value as well. A mentor can take that opportunity to develop their own leadership skills and, truth be told, it is a way to “pay it forward” to other mentors who have helped along the way.
So whether you are a mentor or a mentee, everyone can benefit from having a solid mentor program.
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