Mentoring: A Key Factor in Advancing Your Career

Technical and job-related skills by themselves are not enough for career success. Among other soft skills, good communication,  networking, and having a clear vision of one’s career are usually necessary aspects for a successful profession.

Many professionals cannot move forward in their careers despite their success at work. This is because they do not have some of these crucial attributes. Becoming a part of a mentoring relationship has become revolutionary for early-career professionals as it helps them develop additional abilities through mentors and create important connections.

A mentoring relationship is often established between a mentee and an experienced professional that lasts at least nine months. Apart from this, the main purpose of a mentoring relationship is the continuous development of the mentee.

The mentor functions as the mentees’ confidant in adding new knowledge, navigating complex social situations, putting forth difficult questions, and promoting professional growth. Many executives and other top-level professionals attribute the importance of having been mentored to their success.
Mentors support their mentees’ professional development in many significant ways. These six advantages of mentoring for career advancement include:

1. Finding a mentor can result into better communication capabilities.

Mentors can be examples as they exhibit effective communication. The desired characteristics will be observed by the mentee through interacting with the mentor and then adopt some of them during future interactions. In giving valuable comments, mentors help improve communication skills among mentees.
 

2. Expanding a mentee’s professional network can be achieved via mentorship programs.

This normally occurs because mentors tend to have more extensive networks given their greater professional experience as well as leadership positions than their counterparts. For example, new mentors may establish introductions linking new mentees with those who will contribute towards their growth within professions such that when doing so, one overviews his or her own business or company where he or she works with others outside its walls

3. Mentors help mentees overcome workplace challenges.

Mentees can easily talk to their mentors about such problems to address issues and sort out career-related concerns regardless of whether they are short-term, operational matters, or long-term.

Mentors’ experience enables mentees to avoid having to learn lessons “the hard way” through trial and error. Advice given by mentors helps them prevent problems from arising before they do.

In some cases, a mentor may intervene even further and give practical help by sponsoring or employing their mentees in new jobs. A mentor may become an enthusiastic promoter who willingly assists with the growth of his or her protégé’s career path.

4. Development goals can be identified by mentors to help their mentees.

Newcomers may lack self-awareness and have a skewed understanding of their strengths and weaknesses at work. In summary, the mentors are capable of embracing the mentee’s abilities in future employment opportunities. These blind spots can be pointed out by professionals through mentoring, thus, helping them implement targeted learning activities.

5. Developing and fine-tuning mentees' leadership philosophies is one of the main advantages of mentoring.

As one goes up into his or her career path, they have to know what kind of leader they are going to be and how to make difficult and ethical decisions.

This is often done through testing a professional in small and large circumstances wherein he’s pushed to his limits until he realise things about himself as a person or as a leader. When it comes to moral dilemmas and other difficult situations, this mentor acts as a sounding board for the mentee.

Another role played by a mentor is being an active listener. He/she can make suggestions, help the mentee choose what he/she wants, and ask questions that will stimulate the mentee’s reasoning without imposing his own opinions

For example, there can be an instance where the mentor helped the mentee resolve an ethical dilemma. During these times, mentoring plays an essential role in changing character for the better among trainees.

6. Mentors also help young professionals get broader views about their jobs or organisations especially those working within different spans of control (i.e., many levels).

They perceive more from their organisational perspectives rather than than their mentees' relatively limited perspectives. They can assist mentees expand their own horizons and understand better practices within other functional areas or geographical sectors by giving them insights . Additionally, they may leverage on experiences when guiding students regarding decision-making processes and considering consequences from potential actions.

Sometimes forming an invaluable mentoring relationship with another professional may be really important for someone who aims to grow professionally in his field. It takes more than mere technical and vocational skills to prepare employees for leadership positions. Always remember the benefits of mentorship are always worth considering when talking about career growth.