If
you’ve considered getting a mentor to lead you on your path to
management, leadership or business success, it’s fairly likely you’ve
spent a good amount of timing thinking ‘how do I find the right person?’
Well, you’re not alone, I write and lecture about mentoring, and I’m often asked this question.
Finding the perfect mentor
Mentors
can become life-long supporters, advocates and trusted advisors. They
can steer your path, help you form both good and bad habits, and
influence your focus. When you’re about to ask someone to be your
mentor, think carefully: is this person someone I can work closely with?
Do I admire them? Do they have the same values as me? Have they ever considered mentoring?
If
you already know the mentor as a friend or work connection, consider
the impact your new relationship will have on your current one. There
may be times when you don’t agree. Perhaps your new relationship as
mentor and mentee may not work out? How will that affect your current
friendship?
How to be realistic about a new mentoring relationship
Don’t
forget a mentoring relationship isn’t like a marriage or partnership;
you don’t have to be fully compatible to make it work. It’s great if
you can be friends, but it’s not a necessity for it to be a working
relationship that achieves. That said, like a marriage or partnership,
when it goes wrong it can leave bad feelings in both parties.
Don’t
choose a mentor based on some romantic notion that being associated
with them will bring you the same levels of success as they have
achieved. Mentoring relationships can indeed be very successful, but
there are times when they are not so great. Achieve very little, and you
will leave people disappointed. I have also known people who felt let
down by a mentor, but achieved great things despite the lack of support.
Here are 10 things you should consider when choosing your mentor:
- Do you respect or admire them and their skills/success/achievement?
- Do they understand what you are aiming to achieve?
- Have they been there, seen it, done it, and able to offer real experiences to support your work?
- How likely are they to give you a ‘leg up’?
- Do they have a personal interest in you/your career/your business and is it for the right reason – to help you and not themselves?
- Do you think you can be yourself with them? You need to be honest with them about your aims, your abilities, your fears and your failures.
- Do they have similar values and morals as you? Or are their opinions likely to jar with your own and cause difficulties?
- Can you image spending time with them and being able to share experiences and ideas?
- Do you trust them to be professional, discreet and respect confidentiality?
- Will they add value to your work and your personal development?
Be
careful when choosing your mentor; don’t go out hunting for the right
person. You often find someone will come along at the right time with
the background and personality that will suit your needs.
This is
by no means an exhaustive list of things to consider when choosing a
mentor; I’d love to hear your experiences of choosing a mentor. What
things do you feel should be considered?
Source: http://birdsontheblog.co.uk/choose-mentor
