Professional Development

Mentoring as professional development

When we think of Professional Development, we often think of something that we do, read, or learn so that we grow personally or professionally. I want to suggest alternative route to professional development, serving as someone’s mentor.

Once you’ve had some life experience you have lots of advice to give and perhaps a few cautionary tales! A way to give back is to serve as someone’s mentor. Surprisingly, though, mentors often find there are just as many rewards for them as for the mentee.

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By Lesa Hanlin

Executive Summary: The path to your professional development might include helping someone find their way. What are the obvious benefits of being a mentor? You provide an in-depth knowledge of your organization and its culture. You support someone less experienced and help the company retain quality employees. But there are some benefits that may not be as apparent.

Mentorship done correctly means really listening and being silent, helping set goals, reflecting back, and asking open ended questions to support the mentee in finding their own answers. These are supervisory skills that can be used in a multitude of settings.

In addition, you have to be self-reflective to be a mentor. Mentees are going to question you about decisions you’ve made. You’re going to have to be vulnerable and share insights that you’ve kept to yourself in the past and that is not always easy.

Some of my favorite quotes from mentors in past formal mentoring programs are:

“Taking the time to share past experiences also gives the mentor an opportunity to revisit the learnings of those experiences. It is a productive way to refresh perspectives.”

“This is a time consuming but rewarding experience that I would gladly do again.”

“When you are required to sit back and answer the hard questions about yourself, your career, and the decisions you make and why, you can’t help but grow.”

Lesa Hanlin is the executive director of Roanoke Regional Initiatives and works for Outreach & International Affairs at Virginia Tech. Reach her at lesa@vt.edu. Ask yourself who at your organization you could mentor, formally or informally. You’ll get back as much as you give, if not more.

You’re going to have to be vulnerable. ” “