In both our personal and professional lives, seeking to develop skills, learn new things, and challenge ourselves on a regular basis comes with many rewards and benefits.
That’s why finding or becoming a mentor is such a powerful way to stay on track in your personal development. The benefits of mentoring are wide-ranging. From accelerating self-development, to improving confidence, there’s so much to be gained.
It’s therefore pretty surprising that only 37% of professionals have one, particularly as so many successful people praise and recommend mentorship.
What are the benefits of mentoring?
Overall, there are many clear benefits to mentoring.
The first thing many people think of is the mentee’s personal development. Yet, this isn’t the only thing.
Mentoring has the power to positively impact everyone involved. It can also support inclusion initiatives, mental health and lead to an increased chance of promotion for both parties.
It’s true: the benefits of mentoring are vast.
Remember: There are many different types of mentoring to choose from. Each with its own uses and benefits, meaning you can choose the type that’s right for you.
What are the benefits of mentoring to the mentor?
To break things down into more detail, let’s look at the benefits of mentoring for each person.
A reason to become a mentor is often the feeling of ‘giving back’. But remember, this isn’t the only positive outcome!
There are a range of personal development benefits that mentors gain from the experience. This includes:
- Increased self-confidence
- Increased self-awareness
- Leadership skill development
- Strong communication skills
- Mastering the art of delivering feedback
- Asking better questions
- Becoming a good listener
- Exposure to new and different perspectives
- Growing a personal network
- Increased chance of promotion
- Increased job satisfaction
- Supporting another person
- Paying it forward
- Learning from someone else
- Reduced levels of anxiety
- Promotes continuous learning
Another key benefit of mentoring for mentors is the effect on leadership mentoring has. Acting as a mentor means practising the core skills needed to be a successful manager or team leader and prepares you for senior leadership.
The different types of mentoring can compliment leadership development too. In peer mentoring, for example, both mentoring parties will take turns acting as the mentor. This develops skills in a equal and supportive mentorship.
Reverse mentoring, on the other hand, gives junior employees the chance to have direct 1:1 access with senior leaders. They will act as mentors to leadership, providing vital up-skilling in areas such as digital literacy and cultural competency.
What are the benefits of mentoring to the mentee?
Of course, mentees gain a lot from being mentored but it’s not just career development as people tend to assume.
Good mentor matching can lead to:
- Increased self-confidence
- Increased self-awareness
- Improved communication skills
- Better personal network within the business
- Exposure to new and different perspectives
- Increased capacity to self-reflect
- Improved goal-setting skills
- Learning from other’s experiences
- Learning to ask good questions
- Being supported by someone
- Being advocated for
- Increased chance of promotion
- Increased job satisfaction
Remember; as a mentee you will also benefit from finding support and guidance outside of your line management. Widening networks is an important way to grow our confidence and knowledge.
Through greater access to leaders within your business, mentoring provides you with opportunities to develop that you might not have in your day to day role. This is why it’s so powerful for career progression!
What are the benefits of mentoring for my organization?
Let’s look at the full picture.
Mentoring doesn’t just benefit the mentor and mentee involved. There are many benefits that organizations can reap that are measurable and impactful to your business.
Here are just some of the top benefits:
- Employee engagement
- Employee satisfaction
- Employee happiness
- Retention rates
- Promotion rates
- Attracting talent
- Improved representation in leadership
- More inclusive culture
- Increased productivity
- Better communication
Of course, many of these benefits feed into one another. For example, engaged employees mean increased productivity and better retention.
By tackling these issues through one solution you can also streamline you HR and L&D initiatives. Who doesn’t want to get more value for money?
To dive into some of these mentoring benefits a bit deeper, here is a break down by theme:
Benefits of mentoring for personal development
- Increased confidence: Whether it’s the ability to share ideas comfortably in meetings, or stand up for yourself in a challenging situation, people with mentors benefit from higher confidence in themselves. Mentors also experience an increase in self-confidence, as their mentee’s success reaffirms their abilities, resulting in a confidence boost.
- Higher self-awareness: Working out your goals with someone you look up to requires serious self-analysis around strengths, weaknesses, and values. As a result, those who receive mentoring are more self aware than those who don’t – and self awareness is highly beneficial when it comes to career development.
- Exposure to new ways of thinking: For both mentee and mentor, the mentoring process exposes new ideas and revelatory ways of thinking or problem solving. This can have long lasting effects on both people in the partnership, encouraging innovation.
- Giving and receiving feedback: Feedback is something we should all want in order to improve, but probably don’t ask for enough. Similarly, managers everywhere struggle with delivering feedback honestly and effectively. Mentoring helps people develop their relationship with feedback in a productive way.
Benefits of mentoring for career development
- Promotions: Those who receive mentoring are promoted five times more often than people who do not have mentors.
- Job satisfaction: Reaching your goals makes you feel fulfilled and successful. With mentors often helping mentees achieve their career goals, job satisfaction naturally increases. Similarly, those who mentor consider their job more meaningful and therefore experience higher job satisfaction and fulfilment than those who don’t.
- Personal network: Those with mentors benefit from growing their personal network outside of their colleagues. A mentor can introduce you to a whole range of inspirational and important people that may have an impact on your career later down the line.
Benefits of mentoring for mental health
- Supporting isolation: People struggling with mental health issues often feel isolated and can experience severe anxiety about both their future and their own abilities. Mentalhealth.org.uk lists mentoring as a method of supporting mental health issues in the workplace, for both the mentor and mentee.
- Self-confidence: An increase in confidence can positively impact mental health, particularly as mentees feel supported in their decisions and career path. Mentors also experience improved self-esteem and confidence from the act of helping another achieve their goals, resulting in improved mental health.
- Lower levels of anxiety: Harvard Business Review conducted a study researching the positive effects of mentoring, and found that people who served as mentors experienced lower levels of anxiety, and described their job as more meaningful than those who did not mentor.
Benefits of mentoring for inclusion
- Exposure to new and different perspectives: Every conversation you have with someone who is from a different background and has a different lived experience, teaches you something. Whether it’s specifically about the business you’re in or about society in general, having the chance to learn and share with someone else in a safe space can be hugely impactful for inclusion.
- Empathy, self-awareness, and cultural competency: If these conversations are happening at scale across your organisation, there will be an increase in empathy, self-awareness and cultural competency which can help foster a more inclusive workplace.
- Targeted initiatives that lead to change: Through types of mentoring such as reverse mentoring, organisations can run mentoring programs that are structured around change. In reverse mentoring, senior leadership is mentored by junior colleagues from under-represented or marginalised backgrounds. It can be used to increase cultural competency and to promote inclusion.
Benefits of mentoring for businesses
- Positive company culture: A successful mentoring program fosters a culture of learning, nurturing, and growth. This will filter through the entire organisation and create teams of people who feel satisfied and happy at work.
- Diversity in leadership: Mentoring considerably helps minority representation at the management level, with many organisations using mentoring to increase gender and ethnic diversity in leadership roles.
- Knowledge sharing: Mentoring is an effective and low-cost way for senior employees to pass on knowledge of the industry and organisation to younger staff.
- Employee engagement and retention: With mentees and mentors feeling more satisfied and fulfilled at work than other employees, naturally mentoring has a positive effect of employee engagement and retention.
- Recruitment: Mentoring programs are an attractive work perk for many people, particularly millennials, who have come to expect mentoring and development opportunities from companies.
As you can see, the powerful benefits of mentoring effect everyone involved. FEI Members can sign up to be Mentors, while FEI Engage subscribers can enroll as mentees - all for free. Enroll today!