Benefits Of Being A Mentor
You’re here so you can probably agree that volunteering your time to help others with college and life transitions is important. Yet, you may ask yourself what’s in it for me? The answer is plenty!
Enhancing skills
Sharing your time with a mentee allows you to develop new communication and leadership skills in a low pressure environment. Asking for feedback on your role, attitudes, and communication within mentorship not only gives the mentee the opportunity to learn about feedback, but gives you new insight to how you are communicating.
This is even more powerful if the mentee has a different background from your own. This is what author and cultural intelligence guru Julia Middleton refers to as “turbulent networks.” As she mentions, networks “like me” have limited value especially for leaders who are looking to expand cross boundaries.
Fresh perspective
New eyes and ears into your work, especially students who are immersed in academic perspectives of industries, can give you a fresh perspective on your industry, workplace, and even your current projects. When was the last time anyone outside of your office gave you significant feedback on your work? Are you missing an opportunity for innovation? Consider how valuable feedback can be from people who are not immersed in your project may be.
New Connections
Though it isn’t recommended that you view mentorship as networking. In mentorship the expectation is not professional networking. That is why you are there. You are there to guide and advice. Yet, what if that guidance and advice leads to a talented candidate for your office. Or a connection to another office, field, or even back to the university.
Giving back
Yes, at the beginning we agreed this is why we are here. Yet, sometimes the “I want to help” answer isn’t big enough. How about these powerful notes: According to Gallup a student who has a mentor in college who encouraged them to pursue their goals and dreams is 2.2x more likely to be engaged at work and 1.7x more likely to be thriving in all areas of well-being. Now that is bigger than just a small amount of help!
Congratulations on your choice to make a significant difference for yourself and others!
