As you launch your career in business or any other professional field, there are several important steps you have to take to improve your chances of succeeding. One of these steps is mentorship. For your career to move to the next level, you need to have an experienced person by your side to guide you through the steps.
The main purpose of mentoring is to tap into the existing expertise, experience, and knowledge of an expert in your profession in order to advance your career. So, if you want to succeed in business, you have to work with the best business mentors you can find, ideally ones who share your leadership style out of the 7 leadership styles. Through their guidance and support, you will be able to overcome major hurdles in your entrepreneurship journey. They will also show you how to ask the right interview questions when hiring new talent.
The Harvard Business Review recently published an article about mentoring in which it reported that Michelangelo – a renowned Italian sculptor – approached sculpting with the humble belief that an exclusive and lovely piece of art already existed within the stone, and his job was only to reveal it. The article further suggested that the best mentors should approach mentoring in the same way.
Dubbed the “Michelangelo phenomenon”, a mentor is a skilled and thoughtful relationship partner who is dedicated to first understanding the mentee’s ideal form and then reinforcing or drawing it out. For a mentor to achieve this, they have to practice the 3 A’s of mentorship. But what are these A’s? Continue reading to know the three A’s of mentorship and how they will benefit your career.
Three A’s Of Mentorship
Availability
Availability means as a mentor, making yourself, your ideas, experience, wisdom, and understanding available to your mentee. It also means being honest and transparent so that you can encourage your mentee to trust you and allow your relationship with your mentee to flourish.
Therefore, if you are a professional or an investor looking for the best mentor to help you grow your business, you have to consider their availability. Apart from making time for you and agreeing to one-on-one meetings, your mentor also needs to make themselves available in several other ways. For instance, they have to be emotionally available. This means that they have to give you the necessary emotional support by encouraging you to keep going when things get tough.
Even if they are not always available to give you a shoulder to cry on, a good mentor needs to give you a listening ear and show genuine concern for your career or business. They need to understand that when you succeed, they also succeed. You can easily know if your mentor is emotionally available by reading their body language and professional conduct.
Another good example of mentor availability is their willingness to offer you an out-of-hours contact service. This can be done through the phone or email. Although it is not a must that your mentor agrees to this arrangement, it’s ideal if they avail themselves to you at critical moments of your business, in case you need their advice in an emergency.
Active Listening
You can’t be a professional mentor if you are not a good and active listener. This is the most fundamental approach to helping a mentee succeed. Active listening is an important skill that is not taught in school. You can only acquire it through practice. So, when you are looking for a mentor, you need to check their listening ability.
You can know if your mentor is an active listener by the way they answer your questions. If they are always giving you answers that leave you with even more questions, it means they are not paying attention to you. Also, don’t assume that because your mentor is quiet most of the time, they are listening to you. Being quiet during a conversation can mean several things. It can mean they are thinking about what to say next, they are distracted, or they are reflecting on what you are saying.
A mentor who is actively listening to you will guide the conversation to avoid close-ended questions and dead ends. They do this by suggesting possible directions and outcomes of a conversation through broad queries. As a mentee, you need to understand that it is not your mentor’s job to give you advice and solutions to your problems, rather; they are supposed to only facilitate self-discovery.
Analysis
Since time is always limited, you need to get the most value from the little time you spend with your mentor. Therefore, your mentor needs to have exceptional analytical skills to be able to understand your concerns and come up with the most effective answers as quickly as possible. They should be able to answer your questions without beating around the bush.
Also, a professional mentor needs to remain up-to-date so that they easily tackle the latest industry challenges. They should also be flexible enough to modify their point of view and analysis based on the latest changes in the industry. A good mentor should also be objective and fair in their analysis of every situation.
In summary, the 3 A’s of mentorship are fundamental to any form of mentorship. Your mentor should be available, analytical, and an active listener. Without these fundamentals, your mentor won’t be able to understand your needs or help in solving your problems. Are there any famous business mentors you’ve dreamed of working with? Let us know in the comments below.
