Mentors get career boost too
By Owen Thomson | theage.com.au | 25 October
Two-way relationship ... Andrew Seager acts as a mentor for fellow Westpac employee Carly Halliday. Photo: Quentin Jones
The up-and-coming young person on the receiving end of the mentor's advice and nurturing is a clear beneficiary. So too is the company, which enjoys the benefits of knowledge sharing.
The final and often overlooked beneficiary is the mentor.
Experts say managers who put their hands up for mentoring roles get more in return than many people realise. In addition to the satisfaction of helping others progress, they can give their own careers a boost.
"I think mentoring is a professional development opportunity," says Dr Judith MacCallum, mentoring expert, researcher and convenor of Mentoring Australia. "It's a very good opportunity for [mentors] to reflect on where they've been, where they've come from and where they're going. It also provides them with new knowledge of possibly younger people or people coming into that profession who have ... different ways of thinking."
Andrew Seager, 47, is an experienced mentor. Adept at imparting knowledge and expertise, the general manager of marketing at Westpac estimates he's taken 15 to 20 people under his wing over the past decade. Currently, he's overseeing the progression of three employees within the organisation.
"The first thing is to really have a detailed conversation around what the person wants to get out of the arrangement," he says. "Success is usually built around a two-way partnership because the mentor and the mentoree need to both get something out of it."
Seager says there are ample career benefits from being a mentor. One is an understanding of what people at lower levels of a company are thinking and feeling.
"The types of people you mentor [reflect] your own team," he says. "[This helps you] keep up with current issues around people and progress."
Seager says in a successful mentoring relationship there's always a little bit of stretching the boundaries between the parties that can be uncomfortable.
"I like making them feel a little bit uncomfortable because that's about progression," he says.
"But it's also about them having the confidence to ask questions to make me feel a little bit uncomfortable. That's a really good part."
MacCallum says interest in mentoring relationships is definitely on the rise.
Mentoring programs can be tailored to an individual and this is one of the greatest advantages, she says.
"For some people, the social-emotional support might be highly crucial," she says.
"In others it might be that networking aspect that's really important and it might change over the time of a relationship."
Seager says those considering a mentoring role should understand that a one-size-fits-all approach doesn't work.
Rather, he believes an individual's goals and expectations should dictate the nature of the mentoring strategy that needs to be implemented.
"From the people whom I mentor, the program I have in place for each of them is very different - the frequency, the topics, the style, and what they're asking me to do," he says.
"In some cases it's going to meetings to observe them in a presentation. In other cases it's, 'I've got this type of problem. I need to talk it through. What are the options?' It could be, 'How should I approach this senior person? I've got this great proposal. How am I going to influence them?' Or, 'I'm really keen to progress to the next level of leadership. I want to learn how to behave.' The objective will be central to how you structure it."
MacCallum says the exact nature of the relationship forged between teacher and pupil remains a grey area.
"Some people say that in workplace mentoring there shouldn't be any kind of relationship, that it should be purely professional and work-related," she says. "Then they say that people have to be compatible. I think that social-emotional aspect can be really important but how far does that go? It's very individual. I don't think you can say that there's no social-emotional aspect because there is and there has to be."
Help yourself
Becoming a successful mentor can be a sure-fire way to boost your own stocks and increase opportunities for career advancement, according to career coach and HR consultant Emma Walsh from Changing Places HR Services.
"For some people mentoring is an opportunity to demonstrate their leadership or expertise in a specific field," she says. "In turn [they] receive expert status they may not otherwise achieve."
Walsh says this helps them to either advance in the organisation they're in or take advantage of opportunities elsewhere.
"The more people they mentor, the more networks they develop and we all know that wonderful job opportunities are often found through the networking and referral of others," she says.
Walsh adds that the feel-good factor from helping others shouldn't be underestimated.
First published by TheAge.com.au on October 25 2008
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