The purpose of mentoring is to connect an individual who has a lot of knowledge and experience to share and connect them with someone who hasn’t gained the same knowledge or experience.
By having someone who knows more than yourself share advice, offer guidance and be a sounding board for your thoughts you stand to benefit from experience beyond your own. Whether in your career or life, having a mentor is crucial to all of our continued growth and development.
What Is A Mentor?
A mentor is someone who helps you grow your skills, make better decisions, and gain new perspectives on your life and career. As a mentee, your mentor will leverage their experience to give you guidance on your career or life now and in the future.
Rather than learning through trial and error, a mentor is a person you can look to for direction and a role model to imitate.
Mentorship has a long history
The term mentor comes from the character, Mentor in Homer’s Odyssey. This character was the companion of Telemachus, Odysseus' son and gave him guidance and advice while he was away from his home and family.
Going back to antiquity the purpose of a mentor is to take all the experience that they’ve accumulated throughout their career and life and transfer it to their mentee for their benefit.
In this article we’ll cover the following areas of mentorship:
What skills do you gain from mentoring?
What the mentor and mentee stand the benefit from a mentoring relationship.
Why workplaces mentorship programs are important and becoming the norm.
How to start a mentorship program.
Mentorship programs in remote or hybrid workplaces.