Why mentors are useful

Your mentor might be closer than you think — start by searching through your network. Think of friends, classmates, professors or even extended family members. Hop on LinkedIn and scroll through your connections.

Your mentor could already be someone you know. Send out emails and try setting up virtual coffee chats. Remember, just because these people might be outside of your network, you can still use your network to get in touch. You want to make your initial message as warm as possible, so before sending a cold email, find out if anyone within your network can put you in touch. Sign up for Prepped today! The step-by-step approach to job search success. Get started. Why mentors are important We interviewed Nsuani Baffoe, co-founder of B Element and long time health and fitness professional.

For yourself and for your mentee. If so, how long? Maintain the relationship with your mentor Maintaining a relationship with your mentor is crucial. Mentorship starts with networking Finding a mentor starts with networking and getting to know others. Sign up for free. You might also like Conversation Series. Get started today, it's free The step-by-step approach to job search success.

However, many other types of mentoring have also proven successful. Peer mentoring is where colleagues mentor each other and reverse mentoring is where the traditional mentoring relationship is flipped on its head. And determining whether or not the person giving the feedback has your best interests in mind can lead to confusion. The relationship between you and your mentor is one grounded in honest self-appraisal and valuable guidance.

It takes a more holistic approach to your development and includes personal and professional growth. With the support of a mentor, mentees can stay focused on their career, gain confidence, attain goals, and expand their networks. Having a mentor leads to self-discovery and helps you continue growing your career.

One of the main reasons for mentorships is for the mentee to set goals. SMART goals setting is an acronym that stands for:. One survey found that 93 percent of workers believed that goal setting was key to their work performance.

For that reason, mentors are key to employee development. By defining goals and creating smaller steps to get there, mentors help focus mentees on what they need to do to advance their careers. These goals are also a way to measure the success of the mentorship. Without goals, a mentee has no direction and no plan to get where they want to go. A mentor helps keep them on track and accountable for achieving their goals.

It provides the motivation needed for mentees to work at attaining their goals. Mentorships can cultivate leadership skills such as listening, compassion and giving and receiving feedback. Participants develop these skills by using them in the relationship. These soft skills are essential for career success. In a study of peer mentoring relationships at the University of Arizona, they found that formal mentoring programs led to the development of the following soft skills in students:.

They also found that they experienced increased self-efficacy and the ability to seek support when needed because of the peer-to-peer mentoring they engaged in. From this, we can gather that the ability to lean on someone else for guidance, support and to have one-on-one conversations with them will lead to the development of soft skills.

Along with developing leadership skills, having a mentor to advise and guide you can increase your confidence and help develop problem-solving skills. Regarding confidence, research has tied having a mentor to an overall increase in emotional health. Mentors offer a different perspective that can be instrumental in changing bad habits or unhelpful ways of thinking. The result of this is an increase in wellbeing and confidence.

Likewise, mentors can serve as a sounding board for mentees to test ideas out. This leads to a better ability to problem solve. Since he was an objective third-party with no stake in any idea or venture, he was happy to let me know what he thought. In return, I knew that he would keep everything I told him confidential rather than sell it to someone else or steal an idea from me. Mentors can be connectors. Playing a dual role of teacher and connector, a mentor can provide access to those within your industry that are willing to invest in your company, offer their skills and expertise, introduce you to talent that can fuel your business and help you get closer to your target audience.

My mentor willingly shared his network with me, taking me to events and making introductions that led to many opportunities I would not have otherwise had. Mentors have the experiences you can learn from to prevent making the same mistakes beginners make. Starting a business is challenging enough, so if you can skip doing things the hard way, why wouldn't you? A mentor has been there, right where you are, and has made numerous mistakes that they can now use as a basis for helping others to skip the devastating effects of not knowing.

I am all about doing things smarter, so my mentor shared many stories about the mistakes he made along the way that became learning lessons for me minus the pain and lost resources that come from making those mistakes. Mentors are free, which makes them priceless in more ways than one. Typically, a mentoring relationship will grow organically through connections within your industry and network. A mentor does not do it for the money.

Instead, they are driven by the satisfaction of helping another entrepreneur, paying it forward from a similar experience they had when starting their own business. I feel fortunate enough to have had this experience and am now in a position to return the favor to others that are just starting out. Not only is the price right, but your mentor is also providing priceless access to everything noted on this list and more. Having a mentor is not a sign of weakness; it shows you are smart enough and are driven enough to succeed.

Top Stories.