IS MENTORING IMPORTANT? THIS IS WHAT YOU NEED TO CONSIDER BEFORE GETTING INVOLVED IN IT

 

Recently, I attended one seminar and was actually amazed by a story of a lady who had decided to take the initiative of transforming the lives of young individuals living in a dilapidated condition around her vicinity. Touched by their affliction, she not only decided to provide for them good living condition but also devised a technique on how to transform their lives.

She decided to initiate a mentorship program by indulging herself personally to coach this young generation of individuals and facilitating them to discover and unleash their potentials. It is now five years down the line since the program commenced and it is evident that it has been an immense success. Interestingly, some of these youths have formed musical bands that use to inculcate inspirational message of hope to other people besides entertaining them. It is actually exhilarating indeed!

From the context above, I am trying to bring out how the mentor can come up and coach, or act as a facilitator, or even a guide in applying the expert and skills that he or she possess to enable another person to develop.

For many of us it becomes quite challenging to identify the right person who can guide us in an effective way, for instance in our professional path. Actually, it is apparent and distinctive that there has to be a consentaneous-based relationship in order to make the mentoring process a success.

A mentee should be open and ready to share information and feelings and portray the zeal to learn from the mentor. On the other hand, a mentor should understand that there is someone (mentee) who is depending on his/her expertise and thus should allocate some time to disseminate the information and guidance required.

In some scenarios, it requires a mentor to go even a notch higher to ensure that the mentee would not revert back to the past situation. This is prevalent especially in the case where the mentee is trying to overcome post effect of drug addiction. Thus the mentor would highly facilitate the mentee who is in the rehab through ensuring that after the process, the mentee can be integrated back into the society.

As a mentee, you should try to get a mentor whom you know well, someone you emulate as a role model and you can interact well with. More so, he or she is professionally enriched with skills and is in the position of freely offering you that expert guidance. This would be a perfect match and as you open up your goals and aspirations, the future will actually be gleaming with hope of accomplishment.

For mentors, Bob Goshen, a highly sought motivational, leadership and a keynote speaker once said, “Leaders..should influence others..in such a way that it builds people up, encourages and edifies them so they can duplicate this attitude in others.”