HOW TO BENEFIT FROM BEING A MENTOR

At some point in your work life, you’ve probably looked back on your tracks and felt surprised. You turned around to see the road you’ve traveled stretched out behind you, a rough and tumble stretch no one could have predicted.
There were so many twists and turns you didn’t expect in your professional career, and all the while you used your cunning, planning, and guts to dodge the hazards. Sure, you’ve got a few scrapes and scars, but in hindsight, those scars are more like badges of honor.
You may have thought once or twice about mentoring someone with less experience than you, teaching them about your industry or trade, and showing them how to avoid the pitfalls. If you dismissed that idea—thinking it wouldn’t be worth the trouble—it’s time to rethink your assessment.

Mentoring is about give and take. It’s a lot like learning to salsa dance, developing an amazing kick serve in tennis or jazz improvisation. It’s a living, breathing relationship between two people—a dance between two professionals with different status and skills. It doesn’t take a genius to see that this is a win-win situation.
Taking someone talented under your wing offers big benefits for you, the mentor, as well as your protégé. The odds are high that you’ll get more out of sponsoring a protégé than you could ever dream.
Most people understand that having a mentor is a good thing. The advantages of hands-on coaching are obvious. The process of mentoring involves guidance and correction, showing the ropes to someone less experienced. This cuts the learning curve short for them, and it enhances the value of your own stock.
The mentoring process sets the stage for you to offer expertise and help someone who really needs it, someone who is worth it. This process might include coaching, sharing the benefit of your experience, getting help finishing a major milestone project and stewardship of new talent.

Top 5 Benefits of Mentoring a Protégé

Whatever your reasons for taking on a protégé, you’ll discover that mentoring gives as much as it takes. Here are the top 5 benefits of taking on the mentoring challenge.

1. Sharpening Your Leadership Skills. As a mentor, working with a protégé will help you develop skills that are essential to lead others. If you’re in a management or executive position, this could groom you for a promotion. If you are already at the top of the food chain, it could help launch you into the public eye or ease your way into the glaring lights of the media spotlight. Honing your leadership skills will certainly serve to advance your present position.
2. Gaining a Fresh Outlook. Whatever your selection process, your protégé will have a different perspective from you, giving you a fresh outlook on your line of work. Protégés are often entry-level professionals who offer new ways of thinking. As a mentor, you can learn as much from your protégés as they learn from you. Plus, their enthusiasm is, well, quite infectious!
3. Developing Your Career. As you support your protégé’s career path, you are furthering your own career too. Working with a protégé can serve as an endorsement of your professionalism, leading to greater prestige and promotion. Your protégé can help you stand out and get noticed. When you decide to change employers, your mentorship relationships start paying 10-fold dividends.
4. Enhanced Self-Image. Mentoring is a journey of self-discovery for you, as much as it’s a means to help someone else get started in your industry. The way you perceive yourself informs the way other people see you. You’ll see how much you have to offer someone just starting out in your business. You may find you had no idea how much you knew about your industry until you begin showing others the ropes.
5. Increased Sense of Purpose. Becoming a mentor is immensely satisfying on a personal level. You have the opportunity to make a difference in another person’s life. By working with a protégé, you can create a living archive of your knowledge, a never-ending cycle of information from which others benefit. Your wealth of knowledge will prove immensely useful to any protégé and the people they connect with. It always invigorates your sense of purpose, particularly as you approach the top of your game.

What lies behind your desire to be a mentor? Do you work for a company with a mentoring program? Maybe you’ve noticed someone who has that same spark you had when you first began your career.
Whatever your inspiration, keep your own benefits in mind as you embark on your journey into mentoring. A little intelligent self-interest is just the ticket to take you a long way in your career pursuits.