Good mentors serve as role models, advisers, teachers, guides, sponsors, and protectors. They help junior professionals forge identities and realise dreams.
For senior professionals, mentorship fulfils a deep-seated urge to guide younger generations of professionals.
Authentic relationships lie at the heart of good mentoring. But not all mentoring relationships are created equal: some are superficial and transactional.
According to Professor Herminia Ibarra, senior-junior professional relationships can evolve naturally through five stages:
- Mentor: The senior provides advice and support privately.
- Strategiser: The senior shares ‘inside knowledge’ about how the junior might advance.
- Connector: The senior provides introductions to key stakeholders and includes the junior in meetings/events that give the junior access to people who can be instrumental for career development.
- Opportunity giver: The senior seeks out high visibility projects/roles for the junior to take on, e.g. a presentation, strategic project, or membership of an external board.
- Sponsor: The senior is committed to the junior’s long-term success, with both professionals giving and receiving value, openly sharing ideas and a mutual sense of competence and confidence, as well as a bias for taking concrete actions.
The ideal mentor relationship includes career-advancement help, public advocacy for growth opportunities, and support and validation. Done well, mentorship bolsters confidence and fosters the development of a caring, mutually satisfying bond.
Source: Ibarra, H. (2022). How To Do Sponsorship Right. Harvard Business Review, Nov-Dec, 111-119.
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For more on supervision, check out our book “How to supervise speech pathologists properly in private practice“.