Who Can Be a Mentor? 4 Qualities That Make You One

Experience makes one a teacher. But in the case of mentoring, you don’t need to have a lot of experience to be a mentor. Nobody can be too young or too old to be a mentor. A 2006 study even found that the most common age range for mentors is between 35-44 years old. Meanwhile, adults over 65 were least likely to mentor young people. A person’s professional stature also doesn’t matter. So who can be a mentor? Let’s talk about it in this article. 

What is a Mentor? 

As Oprah Winfrey said: “A mentor is someone that allows you to see the hope inside yourself.”

Through the years, mentorship has gone through a massive evolution. Gone are the days when mentoring was rigid and traditional. These days, mentoring is dynamic and modern. This is why anyone can be a mentor, especially when doing peer mentoring or reverse mentoring, where the roles are reversed and the younger person is the mentor. In the former, mentors and mentees can be within the same age.  

In either case, the mentor role doesn’t necessarily need to be the older person. The important thing is that the mentor needs to be more knowledgeable in the workplace to pass it on to the mentee. It is more about the value they bring to the mentoring relationship than their seniority level. Their role is to inspire, motivate, and support their mentees so they can achieve their goals at work. 

Why is a Mentor Necessary in the Workplace?

Given that a mentor has more experience than a mentee, they’ve already been through the same challenges that mentees are experiencing. They can relate to the new stresses and fears that are part of a new career. By going through the same path, they can guide their mentees and help hone them to be better versions of themselves. They change the lives of their mentees without realising the significance of their role. 

To give an idea of the value that mentors bring to the workplace, here are some important statistics to note:

• 75% of executives credit their success to their mentors
• 90% of employees with a mentor are happy at work
• 87% of those in a mentorship program feel empowered by their mentoring relationships
• Mentorship helps make small businesses more resilient
• 9 out of 10 employees say their mentor has helped them improve their productivity and enthusiasm for work

For a more in-depth guide on why organisations need mentoring, you can read our previous article. 

Who Can Be a Mentor? 

In informal settings, anyone can be a mentor– a friend, a family member, a friend of a friend, an acquaintance from a networking event, etc. But in the workplace, especially in one that offers a mentoring program, a mentor can be a boss, a co-worker, a peer, or someone from a different team,. 

Sure, anyone can be a mentor, but not everyone is built the same. Some individuals naturally possess the necessary qualities of a mentor that make them stand out. Here are some of these qualities:

Relevant Knowledge/Expertise in the Organisation

The most basic quality that every mentor needs to possess is relevant expertise or knowledge in the organisation. They do not necessarily need to have a senior or managerial role in the organisation, but they must have a relevant background to assist the mentee. 

Eagerness to Share 

While having expertise or knowledge is important, a mentor must also be eager to share it with a mentee. But when it comes to sharing their knowledge, they shouldn’t just hand it over in a vague manner or expect payment in return. Instead, they should be eager to share their experience without prejudice so they can genuinely help the mentee learn from them. Since mentorship is not a paid task, a mentor should find genuine joy in helping others. 

Respect for Others

Being a mentor is not an excuse to treat other people badly. A mentor should always be respectful to other people, even those who are hoping to learn a thing or two from them. Respect goes both ways and if the mentor cannot respect the mentee, it will only be chaos for their mentoring relationship. 

At the same time, a mentor needs to give mentees room to make mistakes and learn from them. Mentors need to have a balance between being constructive and showing tough love. They must know how to deliver feedback kindly and directly without worrying about hurting their mentee’s feelings. 

Empathetic 

Aside from being respectful, a mentor should be empathetic and lend a listening ear to a mentee. Instead of telling the mentee the answer right away, an empathetic mentor will ask more questions and listen as the answer is being given. This way, they can steer their mentee in the right direction without imposing their own beliefs. 

At the end of the day, a good mentor should be able to celebrate their mentees’ victories instead of feeling threatened by them. Mentorship is a two-way street. While mentors help their mentees, they also learn much about themselves through this endeavour. 

RELATED ARTICLE: How to Be a Great Mentor: Key Insights & Practical Tips

The most important quality for a mentor is their relevance and ability to support the goals of their mentee. Choosing the best mentor, not just one that looks good on paper is crucial to your long-term success as a mentee. 

Let’s Build Your Mentorship Program

Are you ready to build a mentorship program that will help your organisation? The trick is to have effective mentoring relationships that have been paired through an evidence-based algorithm. Manually pairing mentors and mentees together is one of the reasons why mentoring programs fail. Allow us to eradicate that with Brancher’s proprietary mentoring software that has created successful pairings since 2022. Call us today to schedule a demo to see how our mentoring platform works. 

Sources: 

1. ResearchGate. (2006). https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-percentage-of-mentors-who-fell-into-each-category-by-gender-a-age-b-race-c_fig2_313901804

2. Youth.gov. Adults Who Act as Mentors. https://youth.gov/youth-topics/mentoring/adults-who-act-mentors

3. Winfrey, Oprah. GoodReads. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8485343-a-mentor-is-someone-who-allows-you-to-see-the

4. Rapp, Alyssa. (2018, October 2). Forbes. Be One, Get One: The Importance of Mentorship. https://www.forbes.com/sites/yec/2018/10/02/be-one-get-one-the-importance-of-mentorship/?sh=ca636a474343. 

5. Cantalupo, Gracey. (2022, May 19). Forbes. Does Mentoring Still Matter For Fortune 500 Companies?. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2022/05/19/does-mentoring-still-matter-for-fortune-500-companies/?sh=4b46aefd5d8c

6. Mentoring Complete. Mentoring Statistics: Everything You Need to Know in 2024. https://www.mentoringcomplete.com/mentoring-statistics-everything-you-need-to-know-in-2024/

7. Wronski, Laura; Cohen, Jon. (2019, July 16). CNBC. Nine in 10 workers who have a career mentor say they are happy in their jobs. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/16/nine-in-10-workers-who-have-a-mentor-say-they-are-happy-in-their-jobs.html