Once upon a time, every successful person was once a promising up and comer in need of a mentor. Becoming a mentor is a great way to give back and also comes with numerous benefits. These are six of the benefits of becoming a mentor.
1. Improve Personal and Communication Skills
You will be hard-pressed to find a job description that doesn’t call for communication and interpersonal skills. Mentoring is all about learning to communicate effectively with your mentee. It requires you to sharpen your ability to listen and provide constructive feedback and develop empathy. All of these skills are useful for advancing your career and personal relationships.
2. Build Leadership and Management Skills
It is difficult to move up in most professions if you do not develop an aptitude for leading and managing other people. Many people who are promoted into management because of their stellar job performance struggle if they have not had the opportunity to hone their leadership and management skills before moving into the position. Mentoring provides you with an opportunity to learn the critical skills necessary to effectively lead.
3. Learn More About Yourself
When you share your life experiences with your mentee, it forces you to reexamine your own life and reflect upon it. Revisiting your past failures and successes will help you discover what your strengths are and where you can make improvements.
4. Refresh Your Knowledge
Sharing your knowledge with your mentee provides you with the opportunity to gain new perspectives and insights. This will help you refresh the knowledge you already have and expand upon it. As your mentee learns from your experiences, you will also learn from your mentee’s experiences.
5. Learn To Be an Advocate for Others
Part of your job as a mentor is to provide encouragement and motivation for your mentee. At times, you may also need to go to bat for her. Learning to effectively advocate for others will help you if you hope to advance your career as a leader or manager in your profession. An important part of any leadership role is advocating for your team, whether that is trying to get better pay, an annual bonus, or new opportunities. Additionally, it is also important to teach self-advocacy as a mentor. Teaching others how to advocate for themselves can help you improve your own ability to advocate for yourself.
6. Build Your Network
As a mentor, you will have a lot of opportunities to meet new people and build your network. Take advantage of opportunities, such as the Adventures of the Mind project, advocated by entertainment lawyer John Branca. Not only will you have amazing opportunities to mentor promising people, but you will get the chance to rub elbows with other prominent people and add them to your network.
Becoming a mentor can be an extremely fulfilling endeavor. It provides you with the opportunity to pass on your knowledge to the next generation, while also improving and expanding upon your own skills, experiences, and network.
