Mentorship programs provide plenty of benefits to the participants and, overall, to the company. A mentor has a lot of responsibilities to serve. Thus, mentors must be aware of the tasks they are expected to perform. As mentorships involve two participants, the mentor and the mentee, mentors should focus on the mentee’s objective. The mentor’s primary duty is to influence the mentee and guide them to make their career worthwhile.
They both should enjoy the benefit and company of each other; this is called successful mentorship when both the participants are satisfied.
Difference Between Mentoring and Coaching
- Coaching and mentoring are similar in various aspects, but they are not the same. The words have different meanings, which the mentors must understand for effective mentorship.
- Both mentoring and coaching are interchangeably used by people, leading to confusion. They are pretty alike, but there is a difference in the roles they both play.
- Mentoring programs are long-term relationships, and the participants visit each other regularly until the objectives are not met. It is not only the mentee who develops in the process, but the mentor also evolves.
- Mentors are supposed to share their experience and knowledge while learning from mentees about the newer market loopholes and current business situations. In mentorship, people exchange their knowledge and understanding. While coaching, the coach briefs the student.
- Both the terms provide guidance and support and give respected growth to their students. But, in mentoring sessions, the focus is on the person’s overall development, whereas in coaching, they only provide aid to limited and targeted points.
So, one must understand the main distinction between mentoring and coaching, so they can choose the best option for themselves and do justice to the job and role allotted to them.
Let us look at what mentors are precisely in summary.
To understand the position of mentor, we must look for the roles which are expected of him.
The prominent role of any mentor should be providing help, all-time support, suggestions and advice, catching errors, goal-oriented, sponsoring, sharing their experience, giving freedom of expression, transparency, being an inspiration or mode of motivation, and most importantly, a good friend.
Let us look at the few responsibilities that are expected by a mentor to be performed meticulously.
Responsibilities
- The main motto of any mentor is to fulfill the mentee’s objective before looking toward their own
- Establishes, Maintain and Sustain relationship with mentees for longer terms
- Must be enthusiast and workaholic and should initiate relationships rather than just expecting the mentee to start,
- Let the mentee take responsibility and follow their lead rather than just pressuring your experience and knowledge into them.
- Allow the mentees to help themselves with their career growth and professional development.
- Never be a spoon feeder to any participants; it will hamper the creativity of mentees.
- Make sure the commitment is satisfied, and no false hope is passed.
- Helps till the objective is not accomplished
- Encourage and motivate whenever the mentee feels low and depressed when stuck in any circumstance.
- Understand the importance of confidentiality in any relationship
- Be punctual about the timings in the mentoring sessions, and you should not let the mentee wait for you for long and waste their precious time.
- Mentors should set regular meetings for both parties to discuss the current scenarios and the upcoming decisions that need to be made.
- Must be a good listener and listens to mentees without making any interruptions
- Express themselves clearly without leaving any room for confusion for the mentee.
- Delivers honest feedback and suggestions to improve
- Guide mentees to identify their inner or hidden talents
- Support mentees in their professional progress activities
- Discuss the goals and results achieved by the mentee and review them each; it can be a special session that can be held after the end of every working year or six months.
- Learn to obey and respect each other
- Understand and establish boundaries
- It helps recognize the differences between each other and never cross any boundaries or have arguments based on personal preferences.
- Never curse or use an informal tone; always have a positive or neutral response as it can create restrictions from stating their true self to one another.
- Always be professional in your work, you should be a friend to your mentee, but there is a fine line that must never be crossed as a mentor, which can disturb their personal life.
- Always ask your mentees before ending any mentoring relationship, and when agreed, only terminate the session.
You can refer to Askme, one of the leading mentoring platforms worldwide, providing help with various business scenarios. It has the best mentors from multiple parts of the world. They offer experts in almost every department, such as entrepreneurship, banking & finance, sales, business development, cryptocurrencies, etc. You can visit them if you are stuck with any circumstances or need help learning the new trends of the market.
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