Mentoring is basically aimed at helping a person attain his or her full potential as a human being. It has a vast canvass that includes development of not just skills, knowledge and work place performance but at a broader level, emotional and spiritual growth. A mentor is a guide who can help the mentee find the right direction and develop solutions to career issues.
Version Current
Most of the young adults do not accept the 'blanket/blank' guidance of anybody, notwithstanding the inspiring and eternal cues from Krishna's monumental mentoring of Arjuna when faced with Kuruskhetra and similar frames of lasting mentoring value in human history. However, today, exposure to electronic and web interactive media has globalised the concept and contours of mentoring. It is an age of virtual mentoring too. For example, millions of young Indians have experienced a new face and articulation of mentoring thanks to the incredible mentoring skills of our former President Abdul Kalam.
Passion the Motherboard
It is perceived globally that while mentors are generally satisfied with mentoring programs, mentees often are not. Mentoring needs a fertile ground called passion. The mentor can appear only when the aspirant is ready. Aspirant is ready when passion for mentoring is felt or cultivated. A passionate student of music pines for a mentor; a passionate wrestler yearns for a mentor. Passion to learn and grow is the appetizer for mentoring. On the fertile ground of passion is sown the seeds of trust. Wherever passion is generated, youngsters are internally ready to accept guidance of a mentor. In the absence of passion, mentoring is quixotic. To a great extent, whether good or bad, film stars have generated passion and trust in young adults. For example Sanjay Dutt could realize some impact of Gandhian mentoring - a 'filmi' version - among the youngsters much faster than most of the post-1947 Gandhian full-timers. Youngsters trust the celluloid icons and the trust comes from passion for what they are, what they do. For mentoring, trust is the operating system and passion is the motherboard. Mentor's own knowledge, experience, skills, insights and personal characteristics together make the application software for mentoring. Passion and trust originate not from aura and cult alone. It also comes from the 'the guide on the side' (immediate mentor, for example a faculty member). The 'guide on the side' does not have to and cannot afford to behave like the 'sage on the stage'. Students are averse to mentoring framed on the perception that they are 'mentoring pawns'. A 'high-born' mentor attitude results in 'still-born' mentoring results because the former fails to instill passion. Mentoring is not knowledge shopping nor is it a psychosocial massage. Mentoring is an enabling 'vent' for the mentee to 'invent' and 're-invent' himself/herself and sustain it. To invent, passion is necessary. A professional learning program is a vent for the students to invent and re-invent themselves. In that process, effective mentoring can leave a career footprint; if not effective, mentoring sessions are just enforced 'foot note' in one's career annals.
Campus Mentoring
Campus mentoring is basically aimed at developing the right attitude, resolve, goal setting and expectation management. Effective campus mentoring in turn enables the students to identify their career and profession mentors and develop self-mentoring with remote guidance, direct or indirect. Today, fascinating sights and sounds of mentoring is available thanks to interactive media and internet. The migration from academic environment to professional learning environment and later from there to workplace demands effective personal orientation. Every phase of life needs new mentors. Skill is required to identify and work with the mentor/s at different stages of life. Mentoring in a professional learning environment is a step in that direction.
Mentoring Oracle
o A mentor will treat students as though they were what they ought to be and the mentor needs to help them become what they have the potential to be.
o A mentor can gain fuller ground in professional life, if s/he effectively helps the students to get what they want.
o A mentor will enable the mentees to manage their own learning in order that they continually use their potential to improve skills, performance and become what they are capable of.
Kon Banega Mentoring Pathi
o active and involved listener
o broad, focused and flexible in knowledge base and dispensation
o zero judgmental
o capable of prompt and constructive feedback
o by nature, honest and open-minded and eager to learn
o capable of suggesting career network and developmental resources
o passionate and successful in own career
o naturally willing and able to find time for the career empowerment of others
o gifted with good interpersonal and communication skills
o accessible, empathetic, flexible in attitude and capable of supporting without controlling
o willing to guide mentees arrive at solutions without making decisions for the mentees
o able to actively and positively question, probe and challenge the mentees
o willing to debate and discuss
o believes in realistic expectations
o strong at organizational skills.
Advantage Mentee
o provides access to a support system during the crucial phase of career development
o helps develop a perspective on choosing and navigating career
o enables clear understanding of career development plans
o helps acquiring the skill to develop mentoring relationships with industries
o throws open diverse perspectives and experiences
o helps identify skill gaps and develops insight into career success factors
o lasting career network
o Provides a source of personal support and guidance with whom weaknesses can be explored and addressed and achievements appreciated.
o one-to-one brainstorming and ideation
o facilitates learning in an assessment-free and stake-free environment
o facilitates a smooth graduation to the workplace.
Advantage Mentor
o provides window to the world and ways of emerging minds, constraints, talents, challenges diversity of thought, style, personality, and culture
o helps sustained focus on self-development as a career guide and facilitator
o gives personal satisfaction from imparting wisdom and experience to growing minds
o provides opportunity for personal development of coaching, mentoring, leadership, management skills, greater job satisfaction and higher self-esteem
o Source of feedback about curriculum courseware and methodology needs
o A lasting career network
Mentoring Streams
Campus mentoring is a combination of career mentoring and psychosocial mentoring. The latter is more personal and relies on an emotional bond between the mentor and mentee.
Mentoring Phases
o Identify, believe in and recognize a student's unique qualities
o Recognizing the student's unique qualities inspires him/her
o The inspired student seeks to benefit from the mentor's support, skills, experience and wisdom.
o From there, mentoring grows into empathy and shared professional concerns
o At this stage, the mentee enjoys testing his or her own new ideas at the professional front.
o Mentoring is gradually reaching the matured stage where the mentee feels confident of his or her skills and outlook to function independently.
o At the height of mentoring relationship, most often at the alumnus level, both mentor and mentee may redefine their relationship as one of equals, characterized by informal contact and mutual assistance, thus becoming true professional colleagues.
Dental Mentoring, a Model
Even fifteen years ago, in most parts of India a session with a dentist used to end up in dental extraction. Same was the case with one to one interaction between the teacher and the taught. The teacher used to try and extract and purge the negatives in the ward. Today dentistry is different. It has come of age from dental extraction to dental mentoring. Today a good dentist is a dental mentor rather than a dental extractor; today a dentist is not a 'destroyer'; s/he is a preserver. We can borrow a mentoring leaf from dentists!
Finally, a mentor is obliged to appreciate own limitations and seek the help of other team members and fellow mentors in order to meet the developmental needs of the mentee.
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