The Essence Of Facilitation of Mentoring
The approach of a new millennium engendered a more commercial viewpoint around the validity of Mentoring to see a shift of focus on the mentor being an experienced person who provides guidance and support.The role of mentor is significant in helping and supporting people to manage their own learning in order to maximise their potential development of their skills, improve their performance and become the person they want to be.Dr. Beverly Kaye (2003) pronounced that “behind every successful person, there is one elementary truth: somewhere, somehow, someone cared about their growth and development,To many people “Informal mentoring is part of everyday life through friends, relatives,acquaintances and strangers as helping is a common human experience”.
The Term Mentor first appears from Greek Mythology in Homer’s Odyssey where Mentor is charged by King Odysseys to watch over his son, Telemachus and his palace while he was fighting in the Trojan War. Telemachus was Athen’s Favourite Stating that she would always stand by Telemachus side and Guard him throughout all his adventures. Athena’s, the goddess of War and Wisdom, took Mentor’s Form so as to guide Counsel and empower both Odysseys and his son at various points in the Odyssey.The First recorded modern usage of the term can be traced to a 1699 book entitled “Les Adventures De Telemaque”, by the French Wri ter Francois Fenelon. In his book the lead character is that of Mentor Telemaque it was an imitation of Homer’s classic the Odyssey. The word Mentor did not seem to appear in the English language before 1750, The Oxford English Dictionary stating that the word was first used in 1750 by Chestere in “Letters to Son, 8th March”.
Mentoring is a collaborative mutually beneficial partnership between a mentor (Who possesses greater ski lls, Knowledge and a PROTÉGÉ (Who is looking to increase his / her skill, knowledge and Experience).The mentoring partnership is an agreement between two people sharing experiences and expertise to help with personal and professional growth. Mentors talk about their own personal experience. Any leader can act as a mentor and offer advice and a hand. A mentor is also called as “professional person, a career friend”. A mentor carries out the following roles.
a. Guiding: The process of directing an individual or a group along the path leading from present state to a desired state.
b. Coaching: Helping another person to improve awareness,to set and achieve goals in order to improve a particular behavioural performance.
c. Teaching: Helping an individual or group develop cognitive skills and capabilities
d. Mentoring: Helping to shape an individual’s beliefs and values in a positive way; often a longer term career relationship from someone who has ‘done it before’
e. Counselling: Helping an individual to improve performance by resolving situations from the past.
A mentoring process for students definitely helps them to share their concerns regarding various issues agitating their mind; a mentor through his Experiences can definitely build self confidence in mentees to face the real life challenges ahead.
A good mentor has the following traits:
a. Openness making others excel
b. Empowering with information and skills
c. Objective advice and encouragement
d. Individual career development plan
e. Ability to create and manage rapport
f. Willingness to be responsible for someone else’s growth
Mentoring Its Usage and Its Applications:
a. Developmental Mentoring
b. Sponsored Mentoring
c. Workplace Mentoring
d. Life Mentoring
e. Peer Mentoring
Need For Mentoring:
a. Enables the long term patronage / development of an individual
b. Demonstrate personal commitment
c. High return on investment in relation to attracting and maintaining talent
d. Full Opportunity to access the exciting and fulfilling career spectrum available
e. Creating a mentoring culture,which continuously promotes individual employee growth and development?
Steps in the Mentoring:
What Are the Protégé’s Responsibilities?
a. Willing to learn
b. Able to accept feedback
c. Willing to “stretch”
d. Able to identify goals
j. Learns specific skills and knowledge that are relevant to personal goals k. Gains from the mentor’s expertise
Are Mentoring and Coaching Identical?
Mentor in the Corporate World:Today interestingly different companies have adopted their own mentor programme. It is a relationship where an experienced person assists the junior level employees to become potential managers of tomorrow.Organizations now look to mentoring to implement a strategic game plan that includes:? Recruitment ? Retention ? Professional development ? Development of a multicultural workforce
a. Abbey: “Mentoring is a relationship, not just a procedure, or activity where one person professionally assists the development of another outside of the normal ma n a g e r / s u b o r d i n a t e relationship”
b. Bennett’s : “A Mentor is a person who achieves a one -to-one developmental relationship with a learner and one whom the learner identifies as having enabled personal growth to take place A Few Famous Mentor- Mentee Pairs:a. Dr. Martin Luther King mentored by Dr. Benjamin E.Mays b. Harry Potter mentored by Professor Dumbledore c. Aristotle mentored Alexander the Great d. Mel Gibson mentored Heath Ledger e. Ramakant Achrekar mentored Sachin Tendulkar f. Mani Ratnam mentored A.R.Rehman g. Gopal Krishna Gokhale mentored Mahatma Gandhi h. Wing Chun mentored Bruce Lee “Alexander the Great valued learning so highly, that he used to say he was more indebted to Aristotle for giving him knowledge than to his father Philip for life”.—Samuel Smiles