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The Importance of Building a Good Mentor and Mentee Relationship
The youth of today will go on to become the leader of tomorrow. One of the primary responsibilities of any leader is to groom the next generation to become a leader one day. This grooming requires training and mentoring of the youngsters for their future responsibilities. Organizations of today realise the importance of planning for tomorrow’s leadership and hence do not mind spending on their younger employee workforce by training them through campus-based leadership development programmes or online leadership certificate programs.
The main crux of any mentor mentee program is to benefit the mentee - the young professionals who seek to get rewarded from the guidance of someone much more experienced than them. A mentorship program is a relationship in which the more experienced professional guides a younger, relatively less experienced professional. The guidance can be given to a mentee in several ways. They can give career advice or act as a role model helping them define a career path. They can also help them deal with emotional support during a difficult time at work. Since any individual’s professional life runs in parallel to their personal life and is affected by it, the mentor can also guide a mentee in personal matters on life, friendship, emotional health etc as long as the mentee wants their guidance on that topic.
A young mentee is at the beginning of a career and has little clue of how to grow in the right direction. They see successful professionals from their field who are senior in age, level and experience and are inspired by them. They want to be like them but rarely have the sufficient guidance that can groom them for it. Even when they wish to seek guidance from their seniors they are reluctant to do so because they are fairly uncertain of whether a senior and busy professional will have the time to help them. This is where the role of a mentor comes in. A mentor, whether assigned by the organization or self-motivated, is accessible and approachable to the mentee.
A mentor helps a mentee in carving their career path, guiding them on the rights and wrongs of the work place and providing them with the wisdom that they have acquired over the years. The mentors benefit from this alliance as they get to ‘pay it forward’. This means that they get to give back to the profession with their knowledge and wisdom. They also get to come across someone much younger than them. This may give them a fresh perspective and a more modern view of their profession. In this way the mentor gains from the mentor mentee program.
A good mentor and mentee relationship is based on some basic hygiene values. There must be mutual respect in the relationship. There should be trust, a sense of responsibility, openness, mutual appreciation as well as some space between the two individuals. A mentor should not impose his thoughts on the mentee. Rather he should motivate him to think and explore more. A mentor is able to give wings to his mentee and not clip them. He should be able to lend a sympathetic shoulder when needed and should be all ears to hear about their goals and interests. Only then will the mentor be able to guide the mentee successfully.
A mentee also has certain responsibilities If he wants to benefit from the relationship he has with his mentor. A good relationship is based on honesty. It is important that the mentee is honest to the mentor about his expectations from the relationship. He should be honest about his concerns and be open about his shortcomings. In this way, the mentor will get to learn about the areas of improvement for the mentee and will be able to guide correctly. He should give proper thought to what he seeks to gain from the relationship. For example, he wants to learn specific work-related skills, or he wants to work on his behavioural short comings or if he is seeking projected related advice from his mentor. One he knows this, he will be able to select the right mentor. A mentor should be able to take out time from his busy schedule for the mentee. The mentee should ensure that he finds a mentor who can do that otherwise the outcome of the mentor mentee relationship will suffer negatively.
A mentee is at the start of his career path and needs to navigate the ups and downs of it by himself. He needs to develop the confidence, skill and maturity to do the same. This is where the mentor can make his present felt in the life of his mentee. The mentee also needs to be responsive and thankful for the invaluable guidance he gets from his mentor.
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