The Benefits of Being a Mentor
Sometimes it seems like the main source of benefits in a mentorship is for the mentee, but nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is, the mentor can be the one who gets more out of the relationship. Let’s look at a few of the benefits of being a mentor.
Definition of mentor: … It is a learning and development partnership between someone with vast experience and someone who wants to learn.[1] Interaction with an expert may also be necessary to gain proficiency with/in cultural tools.[2] Mentorship experience and relationship structure affect the “amount of psychosocial support, career guidance, role modeling, and communication that occurs in the mentoring relationships in which the protégés and mentors engaged…
Mentoring Makes Everything Feel New Again
You may feel kind of like you do when watching a child play in a park. You learn everything new again from your mentee’s fresh view of life. Butterflies look more colorful, flowers smell better, and everything is a lot more fun. The same applies if you’re a mentor for an up-and-coming star in your company or any company. It’s fun to watch them learn and grow, and it feels good to see.
There is the big potential by learning something again through the eyes of your mentee, you can find a new angle or viewpoint that had not occurred to you before. I’ve heard that when you teach, you learn too. That’s very true. The efforts you go through in preparing to mentor and teaching someone creates the need in yourself to go deeper and to stay ahead of your mentee. Your own knowledge of the subject will increase and through your interaction with your mentee, you will learn even more yourself.
Improves Job Satisfaction
Mentorships can help you avoid job boredom in your job. You’ll feel a lot more satisfied with your job when you realize that someone else would love your job and are in fact trying to become who you are. It feels great that someone will someday take over where you left off and be good at it because you have mentored them.
I have read that a good leader always trains their replacements. For myself, even though I am ambitious, I would never want to leave a current job without someone skilled to fill it when I left. That would be a matter of pride for me to see that the job continues to be performed at a skillful level and that my replacement was fully ready to take over my former duties. What a great legacy to leave.
Encourages Self-Reflection
When you work with someone who is hungry, it can help you reflect on yourself and what you’re doing in your career.
Are you really doing enough?
How well do you know yourself?
This new mentoring relationship will help you think about these factors. Mentoring someone allows you to critique your own self while answering their questions and listening to their ideas from a new perspective.
Builds More Professional Relationships
When you start working with mentees, you’re going to build a network of people who like you, know you, and trust you – even when they move on to a new corporation or start a new business. They’re going to think of you, recommend you, and want to keep working with you in some way. In some ways, the mentor/mentee relationship can be a lifetime one that is a valuable resource with both lives.
Increases Peer Recognition
When you are a mentor for others and take care in your mentorships, your peers will respect you for doing it and think of you when it comes to leadership. They’re going to see you as more of a leader than others, and that can pay off for you. A good mentor will actually be a role model for those working around him and those he meets.
Enhances Learning and Development
When you’re trying to help someone else see their learning deficiencies and improve upon them, you’re going to notice yours more too. Pinpointing your own weaknesses can serve you and your own career.
You will find yourself wanting to be a good example by taking more classes, going to seminars, and improving your own development so you have more to offer your mentee. Learning additional skills and enhancing those you already have makes you a better employee, as well as a better
Grows Your Network
For every mentee you work with, your network is going to grow by not just one but probably five to ten people due to the people you’ll meet through them, and the people you’ll meet for them when you look for additional people to help them.
If you want to garner these benefits of being a mentor, it’s important to seek to be a great mentor by learning about the skills needed, taking your mentorships seriously, and putting a lot into it. You get out of it what you put into it, just like everything else in life. You will find that a “giving” attitude will create more a more positive and happier way of life for yourself. Determine to “weave a huge web” of friends and colleagues.
A Great Place to Learn and Become a Mentor
One of the best places I’ve found to both learn and become a mentor is within the Wealthy Affiliate community. Wealthy Affiliate University offers the best online training on affiliate marketing I have ever found. You can join as a starter member FREE and are allowed to try out the entire platform for one week. After that, much of the training becomes unavailable to you until you upgrade to Premium Membership. You can learn at your own pace and enjoy all the great tools and hosting as a Premium member. I’ve been a member for over 4 years and now I have learned so much about building WordPress websites and affiliate marketing that I can assist and even mentor new members. Check out the detailed review I have published to learn more. Or sign up for the FREE trial week.
Comments
I love to hear from my site visitors and read their comments. Please share yours below -Shirley
NOTE: this post contains affiliate links, which, when clicked on and an item purchased, I receive a small commission (with no cost to you)
I have been fortunate enough to have a mentor helping me with my business. I honestly thought that I was the only one getting benefit from the professional relationship, having read your article Shirley, I now realise that he was also benefiting. It has made me look at my business in a whole different light and things that I considered chores are no longer that because I understand why Im doing things. He has also recognised in me some of my shortcomings – perfectionism being one and has offered support and help in how to manage it and progress my business. A very insightful article, and it actually makes me feel a whole lot better to know that the mentoring was beneficial on both sides.
Quinn, thanks for visiting my site and my article on “Benefits of Mentoring Someone Else”. As I researched to prepare that article, I had my own eyes opened also to that same fact. Mentoring is a WIN/WIN for both the mentor and the mentee. We can all learn something from each other if we are open to it. Thanks for your comment. -Shirley
This is so true that a mentor tends to also benefit more by mentoring someone.
I love all the points especially the one you said mentoring helps make people see you as a leader.
I think another point you missed is that it helps you practice your craft again because they say repetition is the mother of skill.
This is why I also mentor people with my dancing skills
Great post.
Thabo, thanks for reading my post and your comment. You are so right about practicing your craft and the repetition being good. May I add that to my post? I suspect you are a great mentor at your dancing. I wish I could get out of this wheelchair and dance but those days are pretty much passed. I do sometimes turn on my “bodygroove” music and dance in my chair though. Thanks again -Shirley
This is a good article. I’ve been looking for advice on mentoring. I’ve been thinking of using my online business to mentor high school seniors and teach them how to build an online business of their own should they decide to not go to college. Thanks so much for sharing. I learned a lot from your post.
Jen, thanks for visiting my site and reading my mentoring post. I think you have a great idea about mentoring high school seniors. What a great program they could begin in the fall before graduating in the spring. They could have 10 months to get through all six levels of training and have a website up and gathering traffic. Hopefully, they would be producing some income at that point and have experience under their wings. Building websites and writing are great skills to have whether you attend college or not. Check out Jerry Huang within Wealthy Affiliates, he starting building affiliate websites and dropped out of college because he plans (and probably will be) to be a millionaire by the time he’s 25. You could even charge to be their mentor. Thank you for your comment. -shirley