The fastest way to get promoted this year

Those with a mentor are more likely to be promoted/rewarded. Those with mentees, even more so.
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A recent study showed that mentoring skills should be part of the selection criteria when promoting internal candidates. Other studies have shown that employees who received mentoring were promoted 5 times more often than those who chose not to.

It’s no secret that those with a mentor are more likely to be promoted or rewarded. But what’s even more powerful is those who also mentor others, are even more likely again.

So how can you capitalise on this? By
building your own advisory board.

Mentoring relationships are golden and unlike many other relationships in your workplace. Different to a coach or a manager, mentoring helps you build a network where experience is shared – creating a daisy chain of advice and support.  

Those with a mentor are more likely to be promoted/rewarded. Those with mentees, even more so.

One mentor can change a person, but a hundred mentors can change an industry.

I know, it almost sounds like a pyramid scheme. Or perhaps, a motivational quote you might see overlayed on a photo of a far off rolling tundra on Pinterest.

But I swear it isn’t – mentoring is, indeed, powerful and incredibly so at scale. It is the difference between all industries moving ahead at the same pace with the same common lived experience and stories versus a world where everyone shares access and inclusivity, to share their knowledge and experience to build richer, better, more productive workplaces.  

Rather than a pyramid, think of it as shaped like an hourglass. You’re at the centre, in the middle of the hourglass, where you set targets to build out your own personal advisory board above you, as well as assisting those searching for mentors below.

A personal advisory board provides you with the advice and experience of others, at the time that you need it. You can say goodbye to the old way of mentoring where only a select few had access to the older and wiser. Now, a mentor is simply anyone that has soft or hard skills or experience that is ahead of your own.

Mentoring to many sounds time-consuming. 

In short, it can be – but so can exercising. However, if you chose to take the stairs every morning or walked to work, that could be one less gym session you may need to make time for. Like exercise, there are so many ways to mentor that most don’t take up as much time as you think and often deliver far more reward than the input.

For example, the
‘just in time’ approach to mentoring can provide your mentors with the guidance that they need, at the time they need it while encouraging self-driven learning and exploration to take the reigns themselves.


Maximising your learning and development budget

We all have a wealth of lived and learned experience both pertinent to our hard and soft skills. To work on our hard skills, we often focus on attending workshops, diving into research, attending a webinar or even a formal tertiary course.

Soft skills like negotiation skills or public speaking, however, are often learned through experience and from others’ observation of yourself – here is where a mentor can be incredibly powerful.

Most of us sit in both camps – we have experience and advice we can share with others to help improve their confidence and skills, but we have a great deal to learn from others too.

A mentor can help identify the areas or gaps you might need to get to the next level. By having mentees, you can develop your leadership skills and help others reach their goals.

Are you building out your personal advisory board and participating in someone else’s?
It’s never too early or late to get started.

Get your organisation participating in mentoring, today!

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Emily Ryan
Emily Ryan
Head of Marketing at Mentorloop. Observing tens of thousands of mentoring relationships, she is passionate about helping people get the most from their mentoring experience. When not writing, you'll find her brewing beer or globe-trotting.

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