Mentorship
Nowadays, education is essential for saying competitive on the labor market. In turn, a mentor is an individual that has a personal stake in ensuring someone’s personal and professional development (Straus et al., 2013). Thus, mentorship is a program that is meant to encourage and help one achieve his or her goals through progressive support and assistance characterized by the field (Straus et al., 2013). Usually, a mentor is a person who is in a position of experience and is an integral part in reaching a follower’s success. However, it is crucial to understand the difference between coaching and mentoring (Garvey, Stokes, & Megginson, 2014).Thus, the difference is concluded in the fact that while coaching is more performance oriented and job focused, mentoring utilizes a more personal approach geared towards the growth of a particular individual.
It would be appropriate to note that mentoring is important in the workplace as it promotes the growth of the people involved. The reason is that mentoring is a power free role, which is mutually beneficial to both involved parties (Wilson et al., 2014). The mentor acts as an enabler who imparts valuable information about a work and personal life to the person being mentored, who is called a mentee. Hence, in an organization, both a mentee and mentor have a freedom of choice regarding the cooperation. It means that someone is allowed to choose whoever mentor he or she want to work with and vice versa. The practice is crucial in building that personal bond. Besides, a mentor provides support in three main ways including career development, social advancement, and role modeling (Stowers & Barker, 2010). In career development, a mentor gives career guidance, enables the skill growth, and provides political protection. In social support, the mentor helps the mentee gain confidence, friendships and encouragement, as well as the expansion of the professional network (Stowers & Barker, 2010). Regarding role modeling, a mentor teaches professional standards, behavioral patterns, and detailed feedback (Stowers & Barker, 2010). Therefore, the scope of the roles of mentors is wide and varies depending on the organization and purpose of the mentorship; however, the mentorship assumes the profound personal and professional relationships between parties involved.
In an organization, mentoring accrues many benefits for personnel and the overall business. These advantages include the cost effective training and developmental approach that can be viewed as fair in terms of the return on investment for the company (Garvey et al., 2014). Besides, according to Garvey et al. (2014), it attracts and retains talented employees, which can be directly correlated with increased productivity and performance of the company while reducing turnover rates. Managers who feel their companies poorly contribute to their development are five times more likely to leave than people who believe their business actively ensures their professional (Straus et al., 2013). It also perpetuates key routines in a business that help save on their cost of production. Lastly, it develops able and competent leaders in-house, which helps save on outsourced skill improvement and coaching programs. Therefore, apart from helping employees grow, mentorship companies with a wide range of advantages contributing to the organizational success.
Mentorship has been around for a huge amount of time since the beginning of the times. For instance, in the Bible, Moses had people in his life who helped him in his path; Aaron, his brother, and Jethro, his father in law. They mentored him until he was ready to lead the Israelites. Later on, he took Joshua as a mentee. Joshua worked for a long time under Moses as an apprentice who helped him learn much from both verbal instructions and observations. He watched his mentor through bad and good times as well as though mistakes and successful accomplishments, the considerably contribute to his prosperity.
Furthermore, it is necessary to note that anyone can be mentored as long as an individual desire it and is passionate or talented in what he or she do (Wilson et al., 2014). Although some mentors are hard on their mentees, but this is only meant to toughen them. It applies in particular by the CEO I interviewed. She only takes on the best and most promising challenges in the company. She tends to build their resilience through overly stretching their work hours. She gives intimate details that must be observed in completing all her assignments. If her metees do not meet the requirements, they would repeat the task over and over again.. As she puts it, it is “to grow a keen eye to details”. She believes that if individuals are genuinely talented but lacks direction and has no mentor; they will never achieve their true potential in life. The other person I interviewed is the head of human resources department in one company. He rarely takes on mentees, although he believes in the mentorship program. He mainly recommends young talented employees and interns to high-ranking individuals in the organization based on their human resources file. In doing this, the HR head believes that he does enough in empowering the young people, which is primarily the aim of mentoring in the first place.
In summary, mentorship plays a significant role in the development of a young talent as in contrast to trainer, a mentor is personally invested in the mentees and helps them gain maturity while advancing professionally. In turn, a coach is more interested in the performance of the individual. On the contrary, mentorship is a mutual experience as both parties get benefits. In the workplace, mentorship is crucial as the mentee learns much from the more experienced person in terms of career development, social advancement, and role modeling. The company also get financial advantages from a mentorship program. In addition, mentorship is not a new concept as it exemplified by various instances in the Bible. It directly shows how important mentorship is: It is the cornerstone of professional success and personal empowerment. Therefore, everyone deserves to be mentored to achieve his or her goals in life.
References
Garvey, B., Stokes, P., & Megginson, D. (2014). Coaching and mentoring: Theory and practice. London: Sage.
Stowers, R. H., & Barker, R. T. (2010). The coaching and mentoring process: The obvious knowledge and skill set for organizational communication professors. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 40(3), 363-371.
Straus, S. E., Johnson, M. O., Marquez, C., & Feldman, M. D. (2013). Characteristics of successful and failed mentoring relationships: A qualitative study across two academic health centers. Academic Medicine: Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges, 88(1), 82-89.
Wilson, A., Hunter, K, Spohkrer, K., Brunner, R., & Beasley, A. (2014). Mentoring into higher education: A useful addition to the landscape of widening access to higher education. Scottish Educational Review, 46(2), 18-35.
