Can becoming a mentor help you grow your skillset?

But what about the mentor? Do they gain anything from the experience beyond a feeling that they paid it forward?

A genuinely fruitful mentorship pairing results in both people growing, feeling satisfied and learning from their time together. It also has them looking to continue to share this wealth with others.

What do you have to gain as a mentor?

The most common benefits of mentoring include personal growth, improved communication style, enhanced leadership skills and confidence, an expanded network and the satisfaction of having changed someone’s life. Mentors also relish their exposure to varying opinions and self-reflection through their interactions with their mentees and notice that the act of mentorship cements previous lessons learned.

Kar-Wei Lam, CFA, is a partner at Creative Planning Financial Group and has volunteered with both formal and informal mentorship programs for over a decade, as both a mentor and as a head of the committee responsible for mentorship pairings at CFA Society Toronto. Lam credits professional mentorship for igniting her passion for professional coaching, teaching and guiding.

Among many mentorship-related highlights, Lam describes a particularly meaningful thank-you note from one individual who landed their dream job in part through their participation in an informal networking and mentorship meeting group she created and ran from 2009 to 2019. The thank-you note was stylized in the form of an infamous credit card commercial, citing the number of meetings they’d attended, introductions provided, hours of listening and learning, and professional relationships developed that culminated in meeting an important career milestone.

Rising to mentorship and breaking through imposter syndrome

Those who need more confidence to put up their hand to act as mentors despite years of experience may be suffering from imposter syndrome – an inability to believe that their success is earned or legitimate based on their expertise or efforts.

“Perfectionism seems to be one reason why people experience imposter syndrome. There's also some research suggesting that low self-compassion and core self-concept might also play a role,” says Dr. Tsasha Awong, an instructor at the G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education, at Toronto Metropolitan University. “If a person is in a relatively expert position or highly regarded role, but are hesitant to mentor others because they worry about not having anything to offer, it is likely that it's because they have concerns about failing or providing the wrong information, and ultimately being viewed as someone who doesn’t know what they are talking about, or as someone who will be found out as being a fraud.”

Ironically, one of the many ways people can conquer imposter syndrome is by participating in mentorship programs and productively channelling their expertise and experience.

Awong cites a recent study involving a brief self-compassion intervention for college students suffering from imposture syndrome. She says the study “focused on three aspects of self-compassion: taking a balanced view and not overly identifying with ‘failure’ and mistakes; learning to acknowledge that all people fail from time to time and that your own personal shortcomings are shared with many others; and finally, avoiding harsh self-criticisms when you make mistakes and focusing more on being loving with oneself.” By the end of the treatment, students in the intervention group had reduced feelings of being imposters and less perfectionism compared to the control group. Awong also find it interesting that “the students who showed the biggest decreases in their imposter feelings were those who, initially, had lower self-evaluations.”

Formal versus informal mentorship

Benefits of formal mentorship programs include established guidelines, goals and expectations. This can include a set agenda to work with, direction on who is to take initiative and a finite duration of the relationship. This also removes some of the awkward gymnastics over establishing the mentor and mentee dynamic. Potential drawbacks can include poor chemistry in a pairing.

While it may seem intuitive to pair mentors and mentees with similar interest or career trajectories, Lam says her breadth of knowledge has been enhanced because of diverse mentorship.

An incentive for informal mentorships is the authentic connection that comes from both people having chosen each other. Unfortunately, without formal guidelines, there may be no talk about structure, and there can be an imbalance in the give and take. This means the mentee must take the initiative to establish expectations and ask the mentor for their guidance or support.

Making mentorship count

Mentorship is about give and take, and success requires being open and receptive. While a mentor can provide their mentee insight and guidance in critical areas like strategic thinking, career planning and negotiation, Lam has seen the most success when a mentor goes in looking to build on their skillset as an active listener and without a preconceived notion of things that they must bestow upon their mentee.

For success, she says, “Curiosity is essential. If both parties approach a mentorship relationship with curiosity and a willingness to share, it can be successful, and potentially life changing.”

Lam adds that mentors can learn the most from their mentees when they are adaptable and ask their mentee how they can help to get to the heart of what the mentee needs. They let conversation unfold without directing it to where they think it should go. She also emphasizes the importance of understanding how someone learns – whether through reading, taking a course or simply talking out loud and applying it to their interactions.

Putting thought into action

If you are debating whether you have anything valuable to contribute as a mentor, dig deep and examine your skillset with compassion and objectivity, and approach the relationship with a sense of curiosity. There are many wonderful mentorship programs available through various member associations and academic institutions. You may find you learn a lot in the process.

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