Working Life > Career > Mentoring

Successful Mentoring

Definition, Explanation	Tips, Checklist
Articles

Definition, Explanation

Mentoring is all about providing job newcomers, junior employees and students with so-called mentors, who help and coach with job and professional issues, establishing contacts and helping with problems. They encourage the mentee's personal and occupational development. In doing so, a mentor is like a guide or teacher, who often becomes an experienced friend thanks to his/her particular dedication. With mentoring programmes, companies mainly pursue the objective of making their junior employees fit for their job as fast as possible. The programmes are designed to create the suitable tandems of mentor and mentee, define the respective ambitions and give the mentoring a structural frame. According to the principle of "encourage and demand", difficult and unpleasant issues are addressed and tasks are set.

The advantage of a mentoring programme is

For the mentee

• The adjustment to the new job and possibly new company
• The learning of leadership behaviour, application of what has already been learned at leadership seminars
• The reflection and exchange of difficult situations already experienced and their overcoming
• The building up of self-confidence by knowing "I am not alone, but am being supported and can draw on someone who I trust and who has experienced a similar situation"
• Greater willingness through strengthened self-confidence to have the courage to do difficult tasks
• The getting to know and understanding the informal structures within a company and can make use of this information for his/her tasks
• He/she is given access to his/her mentor's networks

For the mentor

• Through the involvement with his/her mentee, various kinds of behaviour are reflected and he/she gets new stimuli for his own leadership behaviour
• He/she gets to know new knowledge of management and profits from his/her mentee's networks, e.g. in the college or university
• He/she feels recognized and respected because he can pass on his knowledge and secrets of success

For the company

• Faster and more efficient application of the "high potentials" to their new functions
• Exchange and passing on of experience and knowledge between "young" and "old"
• Promotion of the company cultur and identification with the company
• Communication beyond departments

The concept of mentoring is and has been applied to form a successor. Especially women benefit from it nowadays, to be able to reach management positions

Tips, Checklist

For the mentee

• Inform yourself about mentoring programmes. Ask in your company or look for a mentor yourself
• Do not choose your superior as mentor, as he/she makes decisions concerning your income and career. Well suitable are managers from other company departments, from external companies or from the university or similar institutions
• Remember that a coach, in contrast to a mentor rather tries to analyse your leadership behaviour with you like in decision-making situations. Yet, the problems are not always of a personal nature but are caused by organisational structures of the tasks themselves. Thanks to his/her experience and company knowledge, a mentor knows these correlations and can thus help you further in such situations
• Meet up with your mentor on a regular basis and ask him/her about his experiences in concrete situations
• Make sure the chemistry is right between you and your mentor. You must be able to trust him/her, in order to be able to confront him/her with your problems that are attributable to your lacking experience and your personality

For the mentor

• Recall the time when you started as a manager, your problems and anxieties at that time
• Do not get too involved. Do not solve the problems yourself, but initiate your mentee's learning processes and accompany him/her
• Give your mentee feedback
• Share your experiences with your mentee. What worked how in what situations?
• Treat talks with your mentee strictly confidentially

Articles

• Who You Go to for Advice Will Determine Your Success; Dumb Little Man, August 19, 2009

Last update: 01/26/2010