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How to find the right mentor for you
October 27th is National Mentoring Day. This is a day that I will always celebrate because mentors have played such an integral part of my personal and professional development.
The CIPD define mentoring as “a relationship in which a more experienced colleague shares their greater knowledge to support the development of an inexperienced member of staff. It calls on the skills of questioning, listening, clarifying and reframing that are also associated with coaching.”
This definition is outdated in my opinion as it takes no heed of Reverse Mentoring that is becoming more popular in organisations. This is where a (generally) younger more inexperienced person in the world of work mentors a more senior person. They share their knowledge of technology and what the younger generations are looking for from the world of work.
Either way, for me the main difference between coaching and mentoring is that coaching is a shorter, time defined intervention that will focus on one specific area of development. Mentoring relationships can last for years and don’t always have a specific development objective to meet.
So how do you find a mentor?
Ask your HR team
Many organisations have internal mentoring programmes in place that may be…
