Whether at the college level or earlier, youth mentorship has gotten a lot of attention regarding its impact on achievement. Mentoring is highly transformative and can have a substantial effect on future achievement, according to this research.
What if we could transfer that value to the business? Many people just starting in their careers are young and impressionable, eager to soak up knowledge and learn how to climb to the top. It is a sensitive moment for young professionals, and having a mentor to turn to for support and direction can make a significant difference in their development and future success.
Let us discuss this point in-depth.
Youth Mentoring
The purpose of youth mentoring is to offer mentees a trusted adviser—in many ways, a friend—and someone they can look up to. Mentors draw on their extensive life and job experience to assist their charges in navigating the world. When you apply these ideas to business, you get a picture that looks a lot like this: a young individual is paired with an experienced expert whose duty it is to train them.
Many of the lessons of youth mentoring are also transferrable to business mentoring. Throughout the mentorship, mentees learn how to build valuable relationships, beginning with the relationship they forge with their mentor. They're taught to consider other people's time and resources and value the advice and instruction of someone with more expertise.
Mentees also learn how to connect with others and grow their network of contacts, a skill that builds character and self-confidence. These lessons are identical in business mentoring, where the primary goal is to teach young people how to thrive and excel in their careers. What's more, the rewards of youth mentoring are also realized by business mentors. Being a trusted resource and having a genuine impact on someone else's life is highly gratifying. Many business professionals take pride in doing the meaningful work of being a mentor.
Similarities Between Youth and Business Mentoring
Even the challenges of business mentoring are similar to those of youth mentoring. One of the most important mentoring goals as a whole is to match mentees with the right mentors. It isn't always an easy task with youth mentoring, and it can be not accessible with business mentoring. The study is made more accessible with tools like MentorCloud, which matches mentors and mentees based on their backgrounds, goals, and expectations.
Youth mentors also face challenges keeping their charges engaged, maintaining the momentum of the relationship, and keeping communication active and interesting—all hurdles business mentors must overcome. Just like a new school or neighborhood, the new workplace can be a scary place.
Mentoring goes a long way towards making it less dangerous and more enjoyable. We might be more used to the idea of youth mentoring than we are business mentoring. Still, with all the technology and resources we have at our fingertips, we are primed to transfer all the success of youth mentoring to the business place.
If this post resonated with you, check with your organization to see whether you are part of the MentorCloud network. If not, sign up for a demo here! Our vision is to create a mentoring planet where true equality is achieved, and hard work is rewarded, but it's only possible with your participation.