Figure Out Who

Deciding who you want your mentor to be is the first and most obvious step. Decide what you hope to accomplish with a mentor, and look for individuals who will be best able to assist you in accomplishing those goals. Remember, mentors can be found in your workplace, school, non-profits, and even your family. Once you have found your ideal person, it's time to move on to the next step.

Set Up a Meeting

When you get a chance, ask your potential mentor if you can set up a time to meet and discuss possible mentorship. During the meeting make sure and let him or her know why you think he or she would be a great mentor. Discuss why you want to be mentored, and what you hope to accomplish. If your mentor agrees that a mentoring relationship would be a good idea, you're set! 

Clarify Goals and Commitments

Before you begin your mentoring relationship, it's essential that you clarify goals and commitments. When and how often will you meet? About how long do you expect the relationship to last? What exactly are the goals that you hope to accomplish? By beginning the relationship well prepared, you will be more likely to finish it successfully. 

Here is our interview with Jerry Willbur that originally appeared in the July issue of Mentoring & Coaching Monthly. Jerry Willbur will be holding a Plenary Session as well as a Pre-Conference Workshop at the 2014 Mentoring Conference at UNM. 

Dr. Willbur holds a Doctorate in Human Resource Development and has over twenty years of senior executive experience in organizational effectiveness, operations, sales, business training, human resources and strategic planning. He is currently Director Vice President Emeritus for the IMA and head of The Leadership Mentoring Institute. Over the years Dr. Willbur has written three books on leadership and mentoring published by major universities and several articles published in ASTD Journal, Dental Economics, and several mentoring publications.

In our last post we established that e-mentoring can be a great way to bring mentoring to a wider audience. But does e-mentoring come with any disadvantages? In this post we list a few possible e-mentoring challenges that you should be aware of!

E-mentoring has become much more prevalent over the past few years, and for good reason. E-mentoring makes sense in our technology filled world, due to its accesibility and convenience. In this post we have listed some of the best reasons for e-mentoring.  

In this post we have a few more tips on how to improve your leadership skills by looking at a few common mistakes. 

In continuing with our leadership theme, today we have a post containing a few potential pitfalls for leaders. Also if you haven't yet, check out two of our learlier posts with tips for better leadership. 

Fathers play a critical role in the development and well being of their children. Unfortunately, an increasing number of children live in fatherless households. (This post orignally appeared in the June issue of our Newsletter)

As a mentor, being a positive influence on others is critical. Mentees view a mentors behavior as an example of how to act, so it's important that mentors try to be good role models. In this post we have compiled a few tips for how be a positive influence on others. 

For some mentee-mentor pairs, the hardest part of the mentoring relationship is coming up with ideas for what to do. In this post we have listed a few possibilities to consider. 

Here are a few more tips that can help improve your leadership skills.