The Whys and Whens of Modern Mentoring

Date: 15 December 2023

In this session Dr Judie Gannon will draw on a range of research evidence and sources as well as practical experience on why mentoring matters, to mentors, mentees, organisations and more broadly professional communities and society.  

After attending this session participants will be able to: 

• Understand the nature of mentoring and what forms it can take, 
• Appreciate how mentoring and coaching coincide (and potentially clash), and what this means for mentoring and coaching skills development,  
• Identify when to mentor and when other supportive relationships are needed, 
• Articulate the importance of valuing mentoring, and how to improve personal and professional mentoring practice 

In the session, we will define mentoring, explore the latest developments in mentoring and the flexibility it offers professionals at different career stages. As part of this section of the presentation I will also introduce alternatives to mentoring as a developmental and helping relationship. We will then identify mentoring skills, and their transferability across different aspects of our professional lives and personal worlds.  There will be a short exercise on listening and how listening in mentoring and coaching differs from our everyday professional skills set.  This discussion will allow us to begin to differentiate between mentoring and coaching, and appreciate how both these forms of developmental relationships play a role in the modern workplace. There will be an opportunity for participants to assess their current mentoring skills and pinpoint where further development might be beneficial.  

In the second part of the session, we will examine where mentoring has specific impact and how to move beyond mentoring as a personal practice. We will identify some common errors mentors and mentees make and how to get relationships back on track when things go awry. The session will close with consideration of what it takes to develop and operate a mentoring initiative and the strengths and weaknesses of formalising informal mentoring support in professional areas. A checklist for participants to use when considering whether to engage in new mentoring relationships will also be shared. The final aspect of the session will involve an explanation of the importance of valuing mentoring based on evidence from the research on pro bono work amongst professionals and the management of expectations and obligations amongst professionals.