What is mentoring?
Clutterbuck and Megginson 1999 "Off-Line help by one person to another in making significant transitions in Knowledge, work or thinking"
Mentoring is a powerful personal development and empowerment tool. It is an effective way of helping people to progress in their careers and is becoming increasingly popular as its potential is realised.
A mentor is a guide who can help a mentee find the right direction and who can help them to develop solutions to career issues. Mentoring provides the mentee with an opportunity to think about career options and progress.
A mentor is someone who can help a learner through an important transition in
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Learning – helping them to acquire knowledge, skills and understanding
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Coping – with a new or difficult situation
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Career Guidance
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Personal growth – helping them take responsibility for themselves, their careers and development.
Mentors play a wide variety of roles.
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Coach - helping someone acquire new skills
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Career counsellor – listening and helping work out solutions
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Networker – helping someone build connections
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Facilitator – helping to set and achieve goals
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Critical friend – providing support as well as constructively challenging
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Sounding Board – someone to try ideas out on
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Role model – providing an example from which others can learn.
For training on being a mentor, attend the mentoring course run by POD.
Find a mentor
The WAMS “meet a mentor” events provide a great opportunity to network with other academics and to connect with mentors. Please see our future events to find out more.