How Being a Great Mentor Can Help You to Mix It Up a Little

It's a fact! There are many advantages to being a good mentor.

This is despite the fact that many people assume the arrangement is weighted mainly in favour of the mentee.

Many people simply fail to realise just how much their own career can benefit from being a mentor.

There are advantages for both parties – with both mentor and mentee gaining significant kudos and rewards when it comes to advancing their careers.

In a recent Monster.com article, leadership expert Caroline Zaayer Kaufman explains how mentoring invites development, creativity and inclusion for both mentor and mentee.

It also creates a culture of engagement where employees feel valued - and encouraged to step up to their full potential.

Some other advantages include:

1. Helping the organisation

When you work together with a junior mentee, you can use your years of experience and knowledge to help them achieve more - and not just for themselves, but also for the organisation. By the same token, you also benefit, as you become more aware of the activity happening at ground level and away from your usual field of vision. This new perspective can guide you to new and better ways of operating, while also increasing your value in the eyes of your co-workers and superiors

2. Helping yourself

As a mentor, you can benefit significantly from the experience of mentoring - especially in the areas of communication and listening. Of course, your strategic-thinking skills may be significantly tested. However, you will also learn a great deal from the successes and misfires of your mentee - and this will in turn help to improve your own leadership and management skills. Also, once you become known as a person who is approachable and willing to help others, other colleagues are likely to come to you for help and advice

3. Increasing your future prospects

As the people you helped continue to climb the corporate ladder, you may find their gratitude very helpful. For example, they may want to keep you informed on possible new job offers, or give you the opportunity to speak at corporate events. You may even be offered consultancy work. The possibilities are endless - and all because you put your hand up to help people less experienced than you.

In a recent Inc.com article, content director Todd Nordstrom outlines some further ways being a good mentor can help your career:

·     Forging new relationships

Being a mentor opens you up to a range of connections and relationships you might not otherwise have had. It can also help you to reignite old relationships

·     Giving you a new perspective

The beauty of mentoring is it teaches you things about people from all walks of life. For example, your mentee might not always be from a successful organisation: and assisting someone in a struggling start up with helpful and friendly advice is a great way to spread your knowledge

·     Highlighting the human aspect

Being a mentor is not just about business. As a mentor, you can also highlight the human aspect by building trust, acting with kindness, and generally doing the right thing

·     Focusing on the ‘you’ factor

Being a mentor is not ‘all about me’. It is also very much about helping others, or the ‘you’ factor. Indeed, focusing on any relationship just from your own point-of-view is usually doomed to failure. Therefore, to be a successful mentor - you need a liberal dose of ‘you thinking’ - rather than ‘me thinking’.