|
 |
 |
GENERAL MENTORING ADVICE |
|
> General advice on mentoring |
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
Mentors are role models. They know the ropes. Mentors can offer a gateway to
the experts and resources protégés need to succeed. Research indicates that
mentoring is one of the crucial and important factors in career success.
Mentoring also helps build networks through which people assist each other
by sharing information and contacts.
Mentoring is a medium and long-term relationship between an experienced
person (mentor) who shares knowledge, experience and insights with a less
experienced person (protégé). It is a private relationship based on mutual
trust and respect. Confidentiality is a key requirement.
It is a relationship of free choice and voluntary commitment. Both
participants are responsible for the success of the outcome. The nature of
the mentoring relationship varies according to the personal style of both
participants.
Becoming a mentor brings the pleasure of sharing experience and expertise
with a person from a different environment. It brings the opportunity to
improve leadership skills.
Mentoring is not a private lesson. Neither is it a substitute for human
resource management. It is not a form of therapy or counseling. It is
interactive. Both partners contribute, change and grow.
Mentoring began in ancient Greece. Around 1200 B.C. Odysseus was leaving for
the siege of Troy when he appointed his friend, Mentor, to be a surrogate
father to his son Telemachus. The Craft Guilds of the Middle Ages were
founded on mentoring. Young men were apprenticed to master craftsmen working
in specific professions such as merchandising or law.
Today mentoring relationships are continuing to advance careers and guide
skill-building. As societies become more and more complex and impersonal,
the need for person-to-person mentoring is becoming more and more important.
Mentoring has a real and positive impact. It brings about a culture of
continuous learning. It brings about a culture which is open to differences,
more creative and able to deal positively with change. |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
