What can a mentor teach you about Engineering Management?

Mentor is like lighthouse and standing tall ( not in literal sense) and keep guiding you throughout all your professional as well as personal life journey. Relation of Mentor and Mantee is like two way traffic and exchange of idea, experience and communication. Mantor shall share and guide the team with his / her experience. It's like gaining experience through Mentor's point of view and then decide path forward..

As a current mentor in the industry, mentoring should be a two way street. Although a mentor has much experience and knowledge, the mentor still learns from the mentee. Such as new ideas and different perspectives.

Teamwork matters deeply in our human experience, and it's not just a buzzword; it's the foundation upon which we build our collective successes. Imagine life as a grand puzzle, with each of us holding a unique piece. Teamwork is what allows us to connect those pieces, creating a beautiful picture of progress and achievement.

It is difficult to go from being strangers to forming a good mentoring relationship, and asking someone you barely know to be your mentor can be fruitless. If your company or an organization you belong to runs a mentorship program, apply for it. They will help match you with a mentor and may even provide training on how to set clear goals, set an agenda for meetings with your mentor, and other ways to make the mentorship effective. Outside of a formal program, make genuine connections with people you admire in your company and your community. Rather than lead with your own needs, learn about their work and share what you've learned with them. Find out their goals and how you can support them so you can offer value to them first.

Spend time talking with your mentor about how you prefer to receive difficult feedback and how you two will handle conflict. It is far easier to discuss these upfront than it is to address them in the moment. When you're struggling to move forward with your goal, communicate with your mentor about what's going on for you. Mentees tend to pull back when they haven't been able to follow through on action items due to a change in life circumstances or unforeseen impediments, but a mentor may be able to help you navigate a different way forward.

A mentor can be a sounding board. Someone to correct you when you misstep. They can also give you the positive affirmation when you doubt yourself. They can help you see a bigger picture when you are in too deep. A mentor should be closely aligned with your core values, but have differing approached to you, someone that can push you to your limits, and help you find another way.