Mentoring

Mentoring supports and encourages individuals to realise their potential buy inspiring and helping to shape the leaders of tomorrow

What is mentoring?

Mentoring is a learning relationship between a mentor (who has more experience) and an mentee (who has less experience) with the primary purpose of driving personal growth, building skills, knowledge and understanding forthe mentee.

The mentor brings extensive experience, knowledge, power and influence to assist the mentee in reaching their potential and goals. Whilst the mentee brings their own personal challenges and invites the mentor into their own inner dialogue to help provide insight and intellectual challenge to move them towards their goal.

Mentors may use coaching skills in their conversations, but usually the mentor role is wider than that of a coach and may include opening doors, making connections and sharing experiences.

The relationship is often long term with a long term developmental focus, unlike coaching which is primarily focused on assisting people with their current performance or immediate potential.

Transformative benefits of mentoring:

• Through the knowledge and experience of a mentor, the mentee leapfrogs the learning process, learning to avoid making the same mistakes, by having a personal ‘guide’ who has been through the journey

• Builds confidence, innovation and creativity through being challenged and inspired

• Encourages you to aim higher, step up and take leadership

• A mentor believes in you, will vouch for you, and share their network and knowledge to help support you

• Enables a reflective space for learning

What happens during a mentoring session?

A skilled mentor will use a combination of questioning, listening, observation and feedback to create a conversation that is rich in insight and learning. Your mentor will listen to you to find out how you think, how you learn and what your current situation is. They will encourage you to overcome obstacles and take action to move you forward, help you to learn new ways of approaching things.

Mentoring relationships will typically long term with sessions lasting between 45-60 minutes each. These formal arrangements will be contracted between the mentor and the mentee at the beginning of the relationship.

Professional Mentoring that you can trust

Mentoring can take many different forms, ranging from informal arrangements through social interaction to more formal arrangements with trained mentors.

We’ve established a professional mentoring community of experienced mentors from across the NHS and the private sector who have had some formal training in holding and guiding the mentoring relationship. 

Our mentoring standards are in line with guidelines set by the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) and our mentors adhere to the EMCC Code of Ethics.

To ensure you receive a high quality, professional mentoring experience, we provide ongoing development and supervision to our mentors.

Mentoring is free of charge to NHS staff and under no circumstances should mentees under this scheme be charged for mentoring.

What your mentor will expect from you

To be open to the potential of mentoring and to contribute to conversations honestly and openly. You will be expected to stay committed to the process, which means attending sessions, taking your own notes and keeping any agreements you make during the sessions.

How to apply

If you choose to have a mentor you would need to consider what you wish to gain from Mentoring. Once you have an idea of this you can register on theLondon coaching and mentoring register to get started.

Once registered, you can search for suitable mentors by selecting your criteria. You will be presented with a number of mentor profiles. You have the option of contacting up to 3 mentors for a chemistry meeting to establish best fit. It is important that both you and your mentor feel comfortable with each other.

You do not have to continue the relationship past the chemistry meeting if you do not wish to.

Queries

To find our more about mentoring email [email protected]