Mentoring, Reverse Mentoring and Sponsorship

Mentoring is key to developing a breadth of contacts that help move your career forward. Vince Pizzoni shares tips on how to find a mentor, the benefits of reverse mentoring, and how sponsorship can be instrumental to you achieving your goals

MENTORING is a relationship where a more experienced individual shares their greater knowledge to support the development of a junior, less experienced person. It requires many of the skills used in coaching such as questioning, empathetic listening, clarifying, and reframing, but tends to be a longer-term relationship. In many organisations, mentoring is often used in succession planning to ensure positions have assigned candidates for future progression.

Magic happens in a mentoring relationship when it moves beyond the directive approach of a senior person “telling” to one where both parties learn from each other. In fact, a mentoring relationship is an opportunity for both, encouraging sharing and learning across generations and career experiences. I can confidently say that in all the thousands of mentoring relationships I have developed, I am learning as much from my mentee as I am hopefully supporting them!

Why is mentoring important?

Mentoring brings many benefits to both mentor and mentee. It will enhance professional growth, allow the opportunity for self-reflection and developing a strategic focus, offer encouragement and boost confidence, identify both strengths and areas for improvement, provide networking opportunities, and improve interpersonal and leadership skills. From a company perspective, mentoring can lead to increased employee loyalty and retention, and develop an overall stronger organisation.

From a personal perspective, I have seen many benefits of being mentored in my career. These have included business successes, career growth into executive and board positions, the development of a strong network and a positive mindset open to new opportunities, and handling career transitions more effectively. Through the feedback from my mentees, I have learnt more about reverse mentoring, equity, diversity and inclusion, and allyship too.

How do I find a mentor?

When you join an organisation, they often provide you a mentor. The mentor may also be someone that can support you through obtaining your chartership qualification. Of course, you are reliant on that mentor/mentee relationship working early on which is not necessarily guaranteed.

I would recommend you find at least two mentors; one internally in the company and one externally. As you start networking and developing relationships you will come across people that you feel you have empathy with and have all the traits of someone who you would feel comfortable opening up to and being a source of wisdom and support. Reach out to them and ask if they would be willing to be a mentor. You have nothing to lose because even if they say no, they might know someone else they could recommend.

In some circumstances the mentor may find you. I know in my experience I have had people ask me directly through LinkedIn, professional societies, and networking events, and there have been others that I offered my services to. Gut feel can be as important in finding a mentor as taking a more analytical approach.

Tips to develop the mentoring relationship

For the mentor: get to know your mentee; identify what you can offer; set clear expectations; deliver clear and honest feedback; be an empathetic listener; ask relevant open-ended questions; allow the mentee to learn from mistakes; ensure measurable goals are set and work to deadlines; celebrate successes and be a role model.

For the mentee: drive the relationship; understand what you want to achieve; keep to meeting timings and complete tasks; reflect on what you are doing well and improvement areas; be honest and transparent in your communication and step out of your comfort zone.

In many situations the mentor you have isn’t for life. As the mentoring evolves it may become apparent that a different person is needed and both parties need to be open and honest to that situation. This has happened several times in my career and is a totally natural step in the mentoring relationship.

Don’t forget as a mentor to look for continuing professional development (CPD) opportunities. These can be good both to keep up to date with new developments and as a source for learning best practices.

Reverse mentoring

Reverse mentoring turns the mentor/mentee relationship on its head and sees a more junior and/or younger employee mentor a senior employee.

The concept is believed to have been introduced by the former CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch in the 1990s and has taken off since with many companies and organisations.

The benefits of reverse mentoring:

• Empowers new leaders – younger employees who mentor develop important leadership skills
• Fosters an inclusive culture – senior managers partnered with mentors from underrepresented groups will broaden their horizons and perspectives
• Increases knowledge-sharing across the organisation – develops an organisation that is more creative, open-minded, and innovative
• Builds authentic connections with co-workers – closes generational gaps that exist in some companies
• Improves staff retention - younger staff feel listened to and welcomed, helping reduce employment turnover

In my career I have found it invaluable to have direct feedback from some of my more junior staff and this has created positive change. We didn’t know it was called reverse mentoring then!

Sponsorship

While mentoring supports the development of important aspects of the career journey, the role of sponsors is key to accelerating your career and achieving your goals. A sponsor is generally a senior employee/executive who supports your career in an organisation through conversations and actions with other senior management – “advocating for you when you are not in the room”. Over the course of your career, you may well develop and need the support of several sponsors. Don’t just rely on one. I had several that were instrumental in my career progression at different stages.

Cultivating sponsors will come through networking but may also come through a mentoring relationship as it did for me. My mentor was a senior executive who later became a sponsor and was undoubtedly a major factor in how my career developed. Make sure you have your “30-second elevator pitch” ready for those moments when you do interact with senior management/executives. Maintaining a level of high performance is important but visibility even more so. Also, look for opportunities to support your sponsor. This may be both from a business or personal perspective.

I advise you map out the management structure in your organisation and identify key executives and a strategy to meet them, informally or formally. Your line manager may be of help here or perhaps your mentor. Don’t neglect the development of sponsors and remember to never let them down. They are going out on a limb for you.

Reference

1. UCL mentoring handbook – https://bit.ly/4d6IuDn