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mentor
— ORIGIN from the name of Mentor, the adviser of the young Telemachus in Homer’s Odyssey.
The most important qualities of any mentor are experience, confidentiality, a profound interest in people, a high level of empathy and finely honed professional skills. Stir in a good sense of humour and you will have someone both willing and able to support you on your path to success. When you find that person they will help you gracefully form your own opinions, come to your own judgements and jump to take action.
Working with someone at this level demands trust from both sides. Knowing what effect they can have on their mentee is an essential part of the mentor’s role. As is the need for them to understand how they can affect that person’s self image and self belief, be a master at asking open ended questions and how to help them set and develop their goals.
Mentoring demands the ability to know what to do with the knowledge collected over a lifetime. Mentors need sagacity, wisdom and a life well lived. Wisdom is knowledge applied through experience. To mentor successfully, we need intimate knowledge of the mentee. The more we know about the mentee and the more they know and understand us as mentor, the more successful the relationship and its outcomes.
When we see mentoring as a way of being rather than a way of doing, we grow exponentially. Set the bar high and we have no alternative but to look deep into ourselves, increasing our self awareness. With our increasingly accurate self image, we become less fearful of failure and therefore, paradoxically, less likely to fail. With our new found confidence in Self we discover our Will – the power that lies within all of us.
This is empowerment, the place from which we can help others recognise their own strength, confidence and authority so they get into their personal power and take right action. Clearly and concisely expressing our thoughts and feelings means people cannot fail to understand us. There is no more powerful form of communication than authenticity.
At the Love at Work Foundation we take the responsibility of helping you find the right mentor very seriously indeed. Simply call us if you need our help.