Mentoring the next generation

Vol 47: Issue 1 | April 2024

Training, workshops and professional development may keep your technical skills honed, but having a mentor can unlock so many other benefits — helping you to develop soft skills, navigate tricky career decisions and grow your network, plus tap into industry-specific knowledge and experience. 

Mark Zuckerberg, Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates are all vocal about their influential mentoring relationships (having been privy to the wisdom of Steve Jobs, Maya Angelou and Warren Buffett respectively), and studies show mentoring can increase the likelihood of promotions, higher pay and better career opportunities.

There can be significant benefits for mentors, too. In the process of sharing their expertise, senior professionals can cultivate emotional intelligence and other interpersonal skills, stay up to date on industry trends and expand their network — potentially even finding new talent.

In a Robert Half Management Resources survey, one in four mentors said improving their leadership skills was the main benefit of the experience, while almost one-third cited the internal satisfaction of helping others.

The personal reward that comes from supporting someone to navigate and ultimately accelerate their career cannot be overstated, says Dr Jodie Lowinger, a clinical psychologist, executive coach and author of The Mind Strength Method. 

“Acts of kindness towards others can positively change your brain by boosting levels of serotonin and dopamine to make you feel good at a neurological level,” she explains. “It’s one of the superpower things we can do to boost our mental health and wellbeing — plus, it’s such a lovely thing to have in your goals, to support and empower others in their success.”

Getting started

Aspiring mentors can tap into programs run by professional and business associations, university groups or community and philanthropic organisations, but one of the best ways to get involved with mentoring is to join a program run by your employer, says Natalie Hingco Perez, manager, Internal Audit at IAG and winner of ANZIIF’s 2023 Donna Walker Award for Inspiring Leadership. 

Having been both a mentee and mentor — and having developed the SheLeadsTech Melbourne mentoring program in collaboration with EY Melbourne — Perez believes the most crucial aspect of an effective mentoring relationship is the pairing. To get this right, she says mentors must be able to identify their value.

“You need to determine the type of assistance and advice you can provide,” she says. “Mentees come to you because they have a need. You don’t have to be perfect; you just need to have a strong skill to offer.”

In addition to having an asset worth sharing, Perez says mentors must be able to practise active listening and empathy to build trust and ultimately give their mentee permission to be vulnerable.

“A mentor should become a sounding board for their mentee,” she says. “That means no judgement in regard to what the mentee has said and respecting the privacy they’ve entrusted to you.”

Establish guidelines 

Lowinger’s first piece of advice for mentors is to remember that the interaction is not about them, but how they can empower their mentee to achieve their goals.  

She says mentees should take the lead, both in terms of articulating what they want to gain from the experience and setting the framework for meetings. “But you can prompt them by asking: ‘What areyour goals for the engagement? What are your pain points? What are your stretch goals? How can I support you?’,” she says.

A typical interaction might involve the mentee seeking support to transition into a leadership role. In this scenario, Lowinger recommends validating their challenge, then asking questions to guide them towards a solution. This could mean acknowledging the competitive landscape they face (validation), then asking who they think they could tap into for support. If required, the mentor might then instigate these connections through their own network.

“As a mentor, you don’t want to stifle the empowerment of the mentee,” says Lowinger. 

“You want to use your wisdom and connections to facilitate their success.”

The frequency of meetings should likewise be determined by the mentee’s objectives, as well as the time the mentor is willing to give, she adds. 

“But consistent cadence is more important than the duration or frequency of the meetings. Making a schedule and sticking to it will deliver the message that you care and that the mentee is important to you.”

Think outside the mentoring box

If you’re reluctant to enter a formal mentoring relationship because of the time commitment, consider looking for mentoring opportunities outside of formal programs, suggests Isabelle Kwek, an associate at Wotton + Kearney New Zealand and the 2023 New Zealand Young Insurance Professional of the Year.

“I often gain the best insights from 15- to 20-minute conversations with particular individuals at networking events or conferences,” she says. “Across a year, if I learn from 15-minute conversations with four different senior professionals versus a one-hour conversation with one senior professional, to me the former is more valuable, as each mentor will bring specific insights from their own unique career journey.”

Kwek’s advice to time-poor senior professionals is to help out where you can.

“Think about how you can create bridges and connect mentees to opportunities where they can learn new skills and network,” she says. 

“Mentorship is not strictly always about you directly teaching or guiding the mentee, but about linking them to opportunities where they can do so on their own or with the support of somebody else who is an expert in that particular area.”  

Young professionals on what it takes to be a good mentor

Canopius’s Brodie English has benefited from several mentorships, including a three-month program run through ANZIIF’s Generation i initiative. The qualities he finds most valuable in a mentor are:

• knowledge
• resourcefulness
• patience / suspending judgement
• active listening
• the ability to provide open and honest feedback in a constructive way.

Meanwhile, Isabelle Kwek, from Wotton + Kearney New Zealand, looks for a mentor who will:

• identify opportunities for the mentee
• facilitate connections to their own network
• share the challenges they have faced and how they overcame them
• lead by example.

How should you structure mentoring sessions?

Mentoring sessions can take many forms: a walk in the park, a chat over coffee, a video call or a more formal meeting in the workplace.

Whatever the environment, the mentee should run the session, says IAG’s Natalie Hingco Perez — though the mentor may need to prompt the mentee with questions, or even set a theme.

“The mentorship program I developed with SheLeadsTech lasts for 12 weeks and every week there is a different theme or target,” she says. “We set reading tasks or a podcast for participants to listen to beforehand, then have some reflective questions relating to the theme. These are good talking points to discuss during catch-ups, or the mentee might have other questions.”

Even in less-structured sessions, the mentee should formulate an agenda, outlining the topics they wish to discuss, says Brodie English, an underwriter at Canopius, with more than a decade’s experience as a mentee.

“[The mentee should] establish clear outcomes from the start and have these agreed by the mentor,” he advises. “Create an agenda for each session which connects back to the outcomes wanting to be achieved.”

Sessions can begin with informal conversation to build trust and strengthen the relationship, says Perez.  

“Ask questions about things not related to work and open up about your own experiences, such as how your day has been and what’s going on outside work,” she suggests.

Next, move onto discussing the previous session and what the mentee has implemented since you last met. You can then delve into the key topics they want to address and explore solutions for any challenges they face. By the end of the meeting, the mentee should compile a list of tasks to complete before you meet again.

Read this article and all the other articles from the latest issue of the Journal e-magazine.

 Read issue 1 of the Journal