In a time when up to six generations are working together, there is so much knowledge to be passed on to aspiring professionals. However, mentoring is not limited to the workplace. Mentoring is essential in being able to grow and develop the younger generation in all aspects of life. A mentor passes on skills, experience, and develops character through advice, positive and sincere feedback as well as challenging the mentee to be better through a system of semi-structured guidance (Irby, Lynch, Boswell & Hewitt, 2017) . One must not be young to be a mentee. Rather, a mentee can be of any age. Mentoring is not a one-off activity but a time-taking process requiring a certain degree of investment.
In my desire to broaden the scope of my academic portfolio, I enrolled for a postgraduate degree after being mentored and realizing that I have the potential to overcome challenges and succeed. The mentorship was born out of a bond of friendship. Mentoring is a two-way relationship requiring trust. My mentor having overcome similar challenges as I was facing, overcame them and developed as a professional and now serving in top leadership roles. The reward from the mentorship has been the realization that I have the answers in me for looming challenges in the workplace setting.
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Many corporations, among them Apple and AT&T, have taken up mentoring programs as an essential component of their professional development plans. According to Cooper and Miller (1998), mentoring helps increase productivity and performance through motivation, commitment, skills transfer, and effective integration. However, not all top executives are willing to take up mentoring. This is largely due to prevalent misconceptions ; mentoring is not an organizational strategy, mentoring is “nice to have” but not a need, and difficulties in matching mentors and mentees at the organizational level (Janasz & Peiperl, 2015). Overcoming these barriers requires having set expectations, providing a strategic planning workshop with role profiles, and having clear job descriptions and skills assessments.
While both mentoring and coaching are geared towards driving desirable workplace behavior and supporting personal and professional growth, mentoring differs from coaching in that it is more focused around relationships rather than tasks, is development driven while coaching is performance-driven, requires a great deal of commitment and happens over an unspecified period of time while coaching happens over a defined time frame.
References
Cooper, D. L., & Miller, T. K. (1998). Influence & impact: Professional development in student affairs. New Directions for Student Services , 84 , 55–69. Retrieved October 16, 2008, from http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/101522224/PDFSTART
de Janasz, S., & Peiperl, M. (2015). Managing yourself: CEOs need mentors too. Harvard Business Review , 96 (4), 100-103.
Irby, B., Lynch, J., Boswell, J., & Hewitt, K. (2017). Mentoring as professional development. Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership In Learning , 25 (1), 1-4. doi: 10.1080/13611267.2017.1312895
