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Finding a mentor (and becoming one!)

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(@patricia-silveyra)
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Joined: 7 years ago
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The definition of mentoring has evolved over time. While the dictionary defines a mentor as “a wise and trusted counselor or teacher”, or “an influential senior sponsor or supporter”, when I ask people around how do they define a mentor, they don’t always describe a senior person. Some people don’t even talk about someone who is old, or a who is a sponsor. Most of the time, the answer contains the word “counselor” or “someone who helps you grow”.

My idea of a mentor used to be some sort of old-looking person, someone highly accomplished with many years of experience, and someone who will tell me what to do to succeed (and I had to follow his/her advice for life). However, after having navigated graduate school, two postdocs, and a mentored K award, and after experiencing situations of good and not-so-good mentoring, I learned that my idea of a mentor wasn’t accurate. Indeed, most of my mentors weren’t actually old, or more advanced than me in their careers. I found myself surrounded by “junior mentors”, “peer mentors”, and even people who worked in different disciplines. I also learned that not everybody was able to give me helpful advice, and that that had nothing to do with their willingness to help me.

Junior mentors

Some of the best career advice I ever got came from people who were just one step ahead of me. Speaking with someone who looked more like me (i.e. early in his/her career), and who had accomplished something I would like to accomplish (e.g. promotion, a grant awarded, a paper published, a successfully mentored student), was enough for me to want to learn from that person, and to ask for his/her advice. Because junior people know the struggles you are going through better than anyone else (i.e. they were “just there”), they are more likely to give you advice you can easily follow. In other words, they “speak the same language”. Academia is a very dynamic field, and what worked for a postdoc or assistant professor 20 years ago, may not work for one today.

Peer mentors

I heard about this concept at a faculty development training. The idea of peer mentoring is to have a mentor (or many!) who is at the same career level than you, and can provide career advice, emotional support, and positive feedback. The literature has some good examples of these types of relationships, but the concept is that because of shared generational values and experiences, we are more comfortable or likely to have some conversations or with peer mentors than we would with senior mentors. In my own experience, peer mentors are those junior faculty members who are willing to read my grants and give me constructive criticism, and will share with me their struggles and accomplishments. I also have peer mentors who will sit down with me to write once a week (I mention some of that in my previous post), and will hold me accountable for tasks I am likely to procrastinate on. Reciprocity is key in peer mentoring and it is one of the best things about it. I truly enjoy helping my peer mentors, and knowing that I am helping them grow too.

How to find mentors

Finding a mentor that matches your career needs can take several years, and a lot of trial and error. While some mentors will really help you, other mentors may not be able to, or willing to help. This is why having multiple mentors is really beneficial. I believe we should have as many mentors as possible, and then decide on which ones to keep. Senior people can help by providing expertise, connections, and career opportunities. Junior mentors can help us jump to the next step, and avoid common mistakes. And peer mentors will likely be your best friends. Take good care of them!


   
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DX
 DX
(@dx)
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Joined: 5 years ago
Posts: 223
 

Hi,

So from an industry perspective, mainly the official "mentor" is your boss.  Considering that your boss in industry can wear many hats in regards to your professional relationship, from "mentor", administration, collaborator, and supervisor, the latter part coming to play as it pertains to objectives, ensuring your individual contribution is on track and aligned to over-arching team and functional (department or group) goals and so on.

In my experiences, outside my boss being an official mentor, the only other time I've had such was being on a formal leadership path where an official mentor other than my boss was appointed - he helped not only with networking but a key benefit I received from him was navigating "organizational behavior" as key pillar to my growth.

Beyond that, mentors are quite unofficial and basically one ends up more with supportive relationships, usually as part of varied workstreams, project task-forces and so, many are peer and some can be senior as some our your project members can be more senior to you in both tenure and title.  

So I'd say, learn from others, and mentoring does not need to be an official designation.  It can be on your path to leadership as maybe you may mentor someone and maybe you officialize that.  For example I had someone who wanted to understand my role more as a potential career path, I officialized a mentoring relationship and that person followed me and supported me on varied activities in addition to their every day job.  

But that' is not needed, as noted a lot of it is informal.  

Where I do get bothered is with coaching.  Which is different from mentoring.  I personally don't like coaching and for me, I've actually told my boss (a certified coach) not to ever engage in any coaching behavior with me at risk of getting nasty look or comment (i'm pretty blunt with him).  The reason is, that when I have an issue, I've thought about all angles already, all solutions, and I've risk assessed and prioritized so what I'm looking for is always a decision.  I"m crystal clear on my view - so i'm not very receptive to a coach who pushes back on to me what I think I should do,....it's already mapped and on the table, so one who is trying to coach me for example look very stupid.   So becareful if HR says you need a "coach" ...reflect hardly, its very different from mentor - a mentor will guide and point and give direction and share experieces, a coach will not.   

Let me know if you have any questions!

DX


   
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