We’ll answer each of these questions along with giving you an overview of why mentorship is a great way to help you with growth, development, and working toward goals.
We’ll look at the many aspects of mentors, including:
- What is the role of a mentor and what are their responsibilities in ensuring the mentee’s success?
- A mentor’s duties in helping their mentee move forward
- Why a supportive, thriving community matters when it comes to finding your path
- How to identify mentoring goals, and how they fit into the mentee/mentor relationship.
- How to develop a smart learning curve to help accelerate your career
Let’s tackle the basics, first. Sound good? What is the role of the mentor? Then, we’ll focus on a basic description, and then dig into other details like responsibilities, learning, resources, and more.
What is the role of a mentor?
The role of the mentor is to guide, model, and share information about their job or the role it plays in their overall career. Together with your mentee, you’ll develop goals, look at ways to expand the mentee’s knowledge and network, as well as identify resources that are relevant and helpful.
In doing this, the role of a mentor includes teaching your mentee how to go about solving issues as they arise. It’s not that you do it for them, but rather show them how to do it. With proper direction, they’ll be able to use those skills needed as their career develops. You’re helping build them up and learn how to expand their knowledge base.
When it comes to the role of a mentor, they can help make an impact in your career by showing you a better, more obvious path via networking help, goals, and more. Though, it only works when you contribute to your success as well. Think of it as teamwork, with an encouraging leader that has been where you are.
Description of a mentor
What exactly is a mentor? Let’s look at a simple mentor description to get you started, then we’ll delve deeper.
A mentor opens a door to knowledge you might not have had access to otherwise. They can help you accelerate in an area you’re trying to succeed in. They are also a reliable figure who can help you build skills, while empowering you with expert guidance.
A mentor is the person you can turn to when you’re stuck at one level and trying to move forward. The best part is mentors aren’t limited to only one field of study.
For example, at MentorCruise, there are mentors available for people working in data science, design, and programming. There is interview coaching, people who understand startups, and those who are experts in business growth.
MentorCruise even has mentors for business teams.
The role of a mentor is to guide you, while encouraging their mentee to tackle problems as they arise. The mentor can help shorten the learning curve, and help their mentee understand valuable skills that will advance or enhance their career.
Thriving communities matter
Have you ever joined a community, excited to learn something new, only to find out it’s like a vast wasteland of silence? It leaves you frustrated, because you finally thought you’d be able to network with people you’re hoping to connect with. When it comes to mentorship, finding an active community gives you confidence that they care.
A supportive community of peers is a great way to stay connected with those who are focused on growing themselves in a like-minded manner. They are a central point in which you can share resources and work together in a cohesive way.
MentorCruise has a thriving community of active participants. Knowing there are people to answer questions, share different information, resources, and knowledge brings a sense of relief when you’re hoping to find solutions.
A good question to ask is what are the essential qualities of a good mentor? We asked, and our community answered. Here were a few qualities mentioned:
- Experience
- Fits with your goals
- Enthusiasm on the subject
- Offers guidance and feedback
- Challenges you to do better
The role of a great mentor is to get you where you want to be through expert guidance and support. With this, the mentor has responsibilities and duties to uphold in this mentoring relationship.
A mentor’s responsibilities and duties
What are the mentor’s responsibilities and duties? What are good characteristics of a good mentor?
- Offer support and encouragement to the mentee as they advance their knowledge
- Track the progress of their mentee to see what other resources may be needed
- Help the mentee identify people to connect with for networking
- Help create a plan of action that leads the mentee forward on their career path
- Communicate how the process will work, the means of contact, and discuss the amount of time you’ve both committed to
- Coach the mentee in ways that help them grow with their set mentoring goals
- If you aren’t familiar with an area the mentee asks about, be honest and seek out answers how you’re able
- Also, follow up and see how the mentee is doing, as they continue their learning path and career
Another unique scenario in coaching with a mentor is the ability of the mentor to ask challenging questions that help you think outside the box and find new solutions. Sometimes, the easiest way to learn is to be forced to think of multiple solutions, because what if your one and only solution doesn’t work? What do you do?
A mentor has been through those situations before and learned via the school of hard knocks. The role of a great mentor is to guide you through shortcuts that you can take in order to achieve your goals and advance in your career.
That’s the bonus of having a mentor, they are somebody who has gone through these scenarios before. You get to learn from somebody who’s been where you are and found new ways to make things work when the obvious method you thought would work, doesn’t. Now that you know what the duties of a mentor are, what can you take from this?
What are some of the mentoring goals every mentor needs to work on? Good question. We all need goals, and in this case, we’ll look at it from the mentor’s side of things.
Mentoring goals every mentor needs to work on
At MentorCruise, one of the important things we focus on is matching the right mentee with the right mentor. With a large community of mentors, you’re able to browse through our mentor section and find a mentor that feels right for you.
The best part is there are different ways to work with your mentor to make things easier for you to succeed. So, with that in mind, let’s get back to mentoring goals. What are some goals that mentors should work on?
We’ve been talking about the role of a mentor, covered a mentor description, and looked at the responsibilities of a mentor. Now, let’s dig into mentoring goals.
Here are a few to start with:
- Being committed to following through
- Active listening skills
- Offer concise, clear, helpful feedback
- Set boundaries and limits, and respect those of your mentees
When it comes to advancing your career, there is no better way than working with a mentor. They’ve been in your shoes, where you are, and know how to get to the next level. Learning skills, understanding what resources are valuable, and knowing who it’s important to network with are all things that you can accelerate by choosing a strong mentor.
A great mentorship can help you achieve your goals faster
At MentorCruise we succeed when you succeed. We not only want to meet your expectations but exceed them. Expert guidance, one of our primary mentoring goals when matching people, is the quickest way to launch your career to the next level.
There are ways to reach your goals faster. Are you willing to learn a new, better way? Want to learn how intellectual curiosity can help bolster your success faster? Find out why going outside of formal establishments just might be the answer.
Will you sit back and simply let your career happen to you, or will you lean in and press forward, accelerate your learning, and advance your career in a smart, efficient manner?
It can be overwhelming when you’re first starting out, but having somebody that can take the role of a mentor can help lead the way and take a lot of the pressure off. You’ll learn firsthand about great resources, tips and tricks, and learn ways to create viable goals that can make an impact in your career or chosen path.
Where do you go from here? Your success is up to you. Let us help you get there faster.