What Is A Mentor? Definition, Purpose & More

A mentor is someone who assists you in developing your abilities, providing support, advice, and guidance, assisting you in making better decisions, and providing you with new insights into your life and profession.

They usually take the time to get to know you and your problems, then use their knowledge and personal experience to help you improve. As a mentee, you will benefit from your mentor’s expertise to receive advice on your current and future profession or life. This relationship is different from a manager or supervisor since it is more personal and confidential. A mentor is someone you may look to for guidance and a role model to copy rather than learning via experimentation.

Mentoring is a union of two people. The person with more excellent experience, expertise, and connections can pass on what they’ve learned to a less experienced person in the same industry. The mentor is the more senior person, and the mentee is the more junior.

The Purpose of a Mentor

A mentor’s role is to assist you in developing as an individual and become the best representation of yourself. This could include assisting you in achieving your personal or professional objectives, introducing you to new ways of thinking, challenging your preconceived notions, sharing essential life lessons, and much more.

The goal of mentoring is to take veteran or high-performing employees’ current understanding, abilities, and experience and transfer it to younger or less experienced employees to develop their careers.

Principles of Mentorship

A mentor is someone who sees greater potential in you than you do and helps you develop it. “The mind is a fire to be lit, not a vessel to be filled,” said Plutarch. Mentoring should be based on this guiding idea. Mentoring programs range in complexity and need extensive training, or they can be as simple as many of our ‘transition in’ peer mentoring programs. However, the mentor should always regard the mentee as the center of attention, which takes a lot of talent. Below are a few principles of a good mentor.

• It is essential to allow the mentee to steer the relationship and encourage them to accept extra workload over their self-reflection and development. There should be no pressure or agenda from the mentor.
• Mentoring should be a planned conversation in which the mentor facilitates contemplation.
• The mentor-mentee relationship should be founded on mutually agreed-upon boundaries and ground rules that resolve power imbalances.
• A mentor should assist the mentee in identifying goals and problems and establishing priorities for personal development.
• Trust, secrecy, respect, and sensitivity should underpin the mentoring relationship.
• Mentors ought to be aware of the advantages that mentoring provides.

Types of Mentors

A good mentor is someone who guides you through the process rather than telling you what to do. Make a concerted effort to precisely understand what you want, put yourself out there, and work hard to attract this high-level assistance and support. While there are many other forms of mentorship, having an essential awareness of three of them will help you decide which type of mentor is right for you.

• Life mentors – They’re usually in their late thirties or forties, and they can work for your current company or a competitor.
• Peer mentors – are professionals who provide you with advice.
• Career mentors – They are usually better positioned than their mentees, and they act as career advocates and guides.

Depending on the persons involved, their aims, and their expectations, each mentor-mentee association will be unique.