One of the things successful people tend to have in common is that they have had at least one, and sometimes many, mentors in their lives –people, who cared enough about them to help them learn about themselves, make significant transitions in their personal growth or careers, and achieve their aspirations. Some people have a natural gift for finding mentors, but it’s often people, who are less confident in putting themselves forward, who gain most from mentoring relationships. If you can answer yes to any of the questions below, mentoring is for you:
- Would you like to have clearer purpose in your personal growth or career development?
- Do you have a personal dream –something you want to achieve in your life –but are not clear about how to go about achieving it?
- Would you like to get a lot more out of your current role?
- Are there areas of skill or self-confidence that are holding you back in your current job role or your career?
- Would you value having a more experienced person as a role model for some things you aspire to be better at?
- Do you struggle with managing work-life balance?
- Would you value a sounding board when it comes to taking tough work or personal decisions?
- Are you expecting to go through a major transition at work (e.g. a new job role) or in your personal life (e.g. maternity leave) where it would be useful to tap into the experience of someone, who has been there before?
- Would it benefit you better to understand the organisation you work in?
Having a formal mentoring programme removes the need to search for a mentor and approach them yourself. In this programme, every mentor is a volunteer (as are all the mentees) and is willing to help you in the way that suits your needs best.
If you still lack confidence in whether to apply to join the mentoring programme, just drop an email to any of the Mentoring Steering Group, who will be happy to talk it through with you.
By Professor David Clutterbuck
