You don’t need 15 years of experience to be a mentor.
You’re never too young to be a mentor. No matter what stage of your professional path you are on, you can be a valuable mentor to someone else. Every person is at an important juncture in their personal and professional lives that other people will be going through soon.
Who’s most qualified to give someone advice about how to enter the workforce?
Not the guy who has been an executive for 20 years; it’s the person who entered the workforce a few years ago. They can relate, the times and processes were similar, and they can provide great insights and advice about how they navigated the exact same juncture.
The average age of a mentor is only 31 years old.
The perfect mentor is only one step ahead. – typically 3-5 years ahead of their mentee.
Mentoring has evolved from being rigid and traditional – to modern and dynamic. The forms of mentoring below speak to the fact that everyone can and should be a mentor, at almost every stage of their career.
Peer Mentoring
Peer mentoring is the one-on-one approach to mentoring, which places a focus on a specific area of expertise. A mentee is then assigned a more experienced peer (typically is slightly older) who has a job at the same level. This relationship encourages a reciprocal learning environment and creates a sense of community with your mentoring relationship. Peer mentoring can help both participants overcome an important event and allow them to share their experience and advice.
Group Mentoring
Group mentoring involves either one mentor in charge of multiple mentees or one mentee who has multiple mentors. Group mentoring effectively strengthens the relationships between all participants involved and encourages a natural exchange of information in a team-based environment. Group mentoring allows different ideas to be shared among the members of the program and provide unique advice to the mentees.
Reverse Mentoring
In reverse mentoring, the roles of traditional mentoring are reversed. A younger person becomes the mentor, while the mentee is typically an older person. This relationship acts as a “two-way street” and encourages both parties to teach and learn. Both members of the mentoring relationship are able to then grow as individuals and develop a stronger relationship. For example, a younger employee may be able to teach an older employee about modern technology.
Regardless of the form of mentoring, each person in the relationship is able to bring their own valuable input to the table.
Mentoring has been able to evolve into a more collaborative relationship, where both members are able to grow together and achieve their goals. And because of this, mentors can be young and relatively inexperienced in the traditional sense.
Although a 25 year old may have less experience in management roles; they have plenty of experience with new technology, new learning behaviours, and understand the consumer preferences of today.
They have equally valuable – yet different and diverse experiences.
Ready to start a culture of mentoring in your organisation?
