4 Key Benefits of Mentoring FOR THE MENTOR
You’re a mentor? Outstanding! You’re doing a great thing. And, of course you invest your time and talent into others for all the right reasons.
You care about your employees.
You want to grow leaders.
You hope to retain talent.
All good and well and, yes, mentoring accomplishes those goals.
But what about you, mentor? What do you get out of the whole deal?
What are the benefits of mentoring that come your way?
You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t ask this question. After all, you’ve got the same 1,440 minutes in your day that everybody else has, and you want to make sure you’re putting that time to good use.
Here are four top benefits you will gain if you raise your hand and offer to mentor another individual in your organization.
Also Read: Does Your Business Mentoring Look Like This?
You set a leadership example for your organization.
Your employees talk amongst themselves and good news travels fast.
That news sets the tone for office morale.
When they are saying things like, “Kinley is mentoring Joe, they’re working on his financial presentation skills.” or “Brett is getting mentored by John. Lucky guy, wish it were me.” you know that they are looking around themselves and making conclusions about the culture of the company they are working for.
And they are making conclusions about the type of leader that you are.
Proactive. Engaged. Willing to invest.
I’m guessing that’s the perception you’d desire others to have of you.
Also Read: This One Action Promises Increased Employee Retention
You transfer knowledge to others that need it.
My friend and colleague, Sam Horn, author of POP and Got Your Attention? tells a great story that illustrates the importance of mentoring to share knowledge.
She said,
“I will always remember the summer my son interned at an observatory in Hawaii.
One night the multi-million dollar telescope wouldn’t work. My son asked to see the manual to see if he could diagnose the problem and fix it.
The answer?
“There is no manual. Frank is the manual, and he’s on vacation.”
Frank was the brain trust! Unfortunately, no one else had been mentored to know what was in his head so they could perform the needed tasks when he wasn’t around.
Some simple one-to-one time with a couple of individuals, teaching them how to troubleshoot a problem, will empower them to fix problems themselves, even when you aren’t able to be present.
Also Read: Does Your Employee Engagement Need a Lifeline?
You get stronger in your own interpersonal relationships.
I’ve worked with hundreds of individuals with all kinds of temperaments and personalities. Introverts, extroverts, researchers, technicians, gregarious, shy, socially adept and socially inept.
No matter their personality-type, when it came to how they interacted with their mentees, there were lessons to be learned and strength to be gained in creating good relationships.
I knew an effective leader in one company who achieved bottom line results and kept the organization in the black consistently.
However, when he mentored a couple of his employees, he had a habit of “talking over them.” He’d listen for a while, a short while, then he’d interrupt their thoughts and questions with his view of the world.
Soon he began to see that his mentees were turned off by this habit and he intentionally began to work harder at listening and held off on the interruptions.
It sounds like a small shift, but it made a big difference in how his mentees and other employees related with him. It was all in a positive way.
As you mentor, you’ll see slight “course corrections” you will want to make to help yourself become an even more effective mentor.
Also Read: How Mentoring Millennials is Like Driving a Fast, Hot Car
You are doing something that matters.
I saw this quote recently.
“I want to inspire people. I want someone to look at me and say, ‘Because of you, I didn’t give up.’”
That’s the beauty of mentoring. You are helping someone else and there’s a deep satisfaction to that.
Hearing your mentee say that, because of you, they got their next job, learned a new skill, received a promotion, figured out a work-life issue…and you were part of that, is a powerful way for you to leave your fingerprint on someone else’s career and life.
That’s the kind of mentor I want to be.
How about you?
Also Read: Three Cool Qualities of Millennials Who “Show Each Other the Way”
Lori Bachman created The MentorShift Group to equip mentors and mentees with a practical and powerful mentoring system. The system is designed to equip those who use it to, not only flourish in their own mentoring relationships, but to be able to transfer its success to others as well. You can contact Lori at lori@loribachman.com