We often recognize the benefits of mentorship for the mentee. The person hoping to gain insight, knowledge, and professional growth from someone more experienced. But the mentor-mentee relationship offers the mentor benefits as well. Let’s explore some positive outcomes from mentoring so you can decide if it is a professional commitment you want to add to your responsibilities.
Improve Leadership & Communication Skills
You’ll tap into your coaching and guiding skills as a mentor. This will strengthen your leadership skills. As you collaborate on the mentee’s goals and objectives, you’ll practice active listening, engage your analytic and strategic thinking and increase your empathy. You’ll need to communicate effectively. This means you’ll need to learn your mentee’s learning style by listening and watching for behavioral clues. This offers you a chance to tailor your approach as you want your mentee to understand the concepts you’re relaying. Approaching a topic from a different perspective expands your empathy, as you consider their mindset and career stage when sharing your experience and knowledge.
Personal Growth & Learning Opportunities
Another benefit of teaching others is you often reinforce your own knowledge which can lead to new insights. In trying to explain a concept or offer solutions, you may find yourself reflecting on your own experiences in new ways or discovering gaps in your understanding. Also, a mentee brings new perspectives to the relationship. As someone less experienced, they don’t yet rely on established industry or company specific approaches and can challenge your thinking. Unlocking these insights can initiate your own personal growth and development. This growth and development includes exposing you to emerging trends and technologies from your mentee. Along with their fresh perspective, they likely bring knowledge from alternative sources.
Increase Your Professional Reputation & Credibility
Being known as a mentor can position you as someone who is capable, approachable, and committed to fostering talent. When you mentor you establish yourself as an expert. Mentoring demonstrates a willingness to support the next generation of professionals in your industry. The additional insights you gain as a mentor can be shared elsewhere to enhance your professional reputation and build credibility within your industry. Once you’ve established credibility, you can gain recognition as a thought leader. Thought leadership brings the benefit of greater visibility and respect among peers and colleagues. That credibility and respect can increase your network and potentially lead to additional career opportunities.
Improve Job Satisfaction & Renew Engagement
Seeing the excitement in another when you share your knowledge can remind you why you chose your field and reignite your passion for it. In helping another succeed, you give more purpose to your work which can translate to an increase in job satisfaction. You will feel more engaged and motivated. Your mentee’s fresh perspective can also help you find solutions to challenges that have eluded you with your renewed motivation and the ideas of your mentee.
Get Deeper Satisfaction from a One-on-One Relationship
Mentorship offers significant personal and professional benefits for the mentor, including improved leadership skills, professional credibility and job satisfaction. While some benefits may also be found through other avenues – for example, social media platforms such as LinkedIn and YouTube allow you share knowledge and gain credibility – there is still great value in the one-on-one relationship of mentor and mentee that these platforms can’t provide. As we’ve shown, mentorship is not a one-way street. You’ll be giving of yourself and your knowledge, but you’ll also be getting back from the relationship. We challenge you to help someone benefit from the knowledge and experience you now have and can share, especially if someone helped you early in your career.
