Why You Should Become a Mentor
Mentoring is its own reward. Whether it’s described as giving back, raising up others, or doing the right thing. Altruism makes you feel good and makes the world a better place. Nevertheless, it should not be forgotten that there are also some tangible benefits to the mentor and their career. Here are just a few of the ways that helping others will also be helping you.
Developed Leadership and Communication Skills
As a mentor, your role is to guide your mentee through the perils of the workplace and help them become the best professionals they can be. To do this requires motivating and teaching them, knowing when to push them and when to hold back, choosing the most appropriate advice at the right time. It can be a tough process but one that will grow you just as much as the mentee. You will learn how to communicate more efficiently, take into account different perspectives, and provide inspiration. All skills are necessary for effective leadership.
Gain New Perspectives
This can be a much-undervalued part of mentoring but one that can deliver the biggest benefits. As you gain experience in any field you tend to get stuck in your ways, becoming comfortable with the same old methods. Shaking this up is vital to continued dynamism and growth. Mentoring does this by exposing you to radically different perspectives as mentees come from a range of different backgrounds. Furthermore, being new to the field means a fresh pair of eyes on an old problem. You may be giving the mentee your experience but they may be giving you a new solution.
Career Advancement
It is always useful to have some numbers to back up a point. When we say that mentoring provides you career advancement it is not just empty words. According to Forbes in 2011 mentors were:
– 20% more likely to get a raise than non-mentors.
– 6 times more likely to get a promotion.
The benefits of mentoring to you are quantifiable. It genuinely makes a significant impact on your career. This may be the end result of the mentor experience but it is due to the accumulation of the skills earlier highlighted. The raise and promotion come about because of your better communication, leadership, and empathy.
Ultimately, for most of us the main and only reason to mentor will be because we want to help others. Nothing should take away from that. The biggest reward is seeing the positive impact you have made on the lives of your mentees. However, it is always good to know that some unexpected benefits will come your way in the form of better career prospects due to your improved professional skills.
Become a mentor at Ishango and boost your career development while helping to nurture the next generation of data scientists.