The Attributes of a Mentor - Essay Example

?The Attributes/Qualities of a Mentor Essay Word Count Affiliation: The mentoring process is designed to enhance the personal growth and development of the mentee. Mentors work towards inspiring and empowering the mentees, while mentees work hand in hand with the mentors to improve most, if not all, aspects of their life. Gopee (2011) argues that a mentor supports and encourages people to manage their learning processes for the purpose of maximizing their potentials, developing their skills, improving personal performance, and enhancing self-realization. Mentoring is highly active in the education environment, although it has also found strong support in other fields. This paper will primarily focus on mentoring in relation to the characteristics or traits that enable mentors to undertake their duties and responsibilities. The paper will also analyse the extent to which successful mentoring is informed by these characteristics or enabling traits, and finally highlight strategies that could see mentors enhance their mentoring qualities. A mentor is expected to exhibit a given level of experience or a set of qualities/attributes that enhance effective and efficient mentorship Walsh (2010). Such attributes allow the parties involved to relate in a way that is mutually beneficial and productive in their respective fields. In a bid to enhance mentees’ growth and development, mentors should build functional relationships that best address the issues, concerns, or interests of the mentees. To do so, mentors require a number of traits, personal characteristics, attributes, or qualities. These aspects allow them to establish strong ties with their mentees, as they work to inspire, encourage, motivate, empower, and challenge the mentees. The first quality or attribute in this line is respect. Mentors have to be respectful to their mentees. Although mentors are most likely more experienced than the mentees, the mentors have a duty to respect their mentees in order to produce the desired results. Without respect, the resultant relationships are less likely to be functional, and the whole mentoring process could fail. It is important to note that the respect factor in this case should be mutual. That is to say that mentors will respect mentees who will show some respect in return. Otherwise, mentors will find it difficult to deal with disrespectful mentees if their respect is not appreciated. According to Elcock and Sharples (2011), respect is a critical factor in any given form of relationship, regardless of the setting within which the relationship is established. The relationship between mentors and mentees is built on trust; this is according to Hinchliff (2004). Either of the two parties involved should find it easy to confide in the other. Without trust, the entire mentoring process becomes prone to operational difficulties, especially if trust issues emanate from the mentor’s side. Mentors who are trustworthy are highly likely to work cooperatively and collaboratively with the mentees, thereby ensuring that mentoring process achieves its purpose. Trustful grounds are created when mentors accord their efforts towards building the mentees’ life positively. Basing this on inspire, motivate, and challenge mode of mentorship allows the mentor to focus on every aspect of the mentee’s life within and without the learning environment. The form of interaction between mentors and mentees calls for mentors to be understanding. Mentees are normally faced with critical issues, concerns, or interests. Striking a balance between them and the mentee’s personal life can prove to be a difficult task. While it may or may not seem to be the case with the mentors, the understanding trait for mentors is fundamental in order to effectively relate with, enhance the growth, and develop their mentees. Working with people whom they do not understand could result in negative results to the mentees. Mentorship, in the light of Aston’s and Hallam’s (2011) arguments, requires that mentors place themselves in the shoes of the mentees in order to fully contribute in growing and developing them. In order to encourage and inspire mentees, Price (2004) contends that mentors have to know every influential factor that impacts on every aspect of mentees’ lives. By being empathetic, mentors allow mentees to open up and be at a better position to foster mentor-mentee relations. Good personality can critically influence the effectiveness of a mentor. While this trait is highly likely to be ignored, the fact that mentees want to deal with good people cannot be disputed. As a result, it is undoubtedly true to claim that mentors are required to be good in order to succeed in their mentorship bid. The good factor in this case is defined by how mentors relate with their mentees. Bossy, bureaucratic, and inflexible mentors could give mentees a hard time during mentorship, resulting in low desire for the mentoring process by mentees. At such a time, the effectiveness of mentors significantly declines, and the interests served cannot be said to be those of the mentees. While mentors play an active role in talking to mentees, they should also be good listeners. The mentoring process should be two-sided, meaning that the mentees should be given a chance to be heard by the mentors. Failure to listen to mentees could imply mentor dominance over mentees. When this happens, the entire process could collapse. To avoid such instances, mentors have to be active listeners, giving the mentees an ample opportunity to express themselves in all matters that pertain to their lives. In so doing, Price (2004) maintains that mentors gain insights as to how to deal with mentees’ issues alongside noting what can be done to have them exploit their full potential for the purpose of becoming that person that they want to be. Over and above being good and active listeners, mentors require observation and problem solving qualities. As observers, mentors monitor the environment around them and around the mentees. Based on their observatory findings, they can acquire first-hand information about what affects mentees in one way or another. The acquired information further enhances the entire mentoring process due to the fact that mentors will be aware of the actual environment within which they interact with their mentees. On the other hand, the problem solving attribute enables mentors to be in a position to deal with existing and emerging problems and/or issues during mentorship. This avoids problem-pileup during mentorship, an aspect that most likely complicates mentorship at a later date. As problem solvers, mentors will not only address problems related with the mentorship process, but also guide mentees in finding solutions to personal issues and/or problems within or without mentoring. The mentor-mentee relationship becomes effective in that line, and so do the realized mentorship results in regard to the goals and objectives of mentorship. Both mentors and mentees have their value in the mentoring process. The roles and responsibilities of a mentor require that the mentor value the mentee. The mentee is a person just like any other, thus the need to value the mentee during mentorship sessions. Mentors who do not value their mentees are said to be inaccessible and inapproachable. These are not desirable attributes and qualities that mentors require. According to Kinnell and Hughes (2010) mentors need to be accessible and approachable in order to fully benefit their mentees alongside inspiring, encouraging, and motivating them to achieve their dreams. Confidentiality is critical in mentorship. In order to meet mentorship objectives, mentors cannot fail to observe and maintain confidentiality. Since not all persons can maintain confidentiality, effective mentors require confidentiality traits. The confidentiality factor complements all the aforementioned attributes and qualities that mentors require. Failure to observe and maintain confidentiality in mentorship results in poor relationships between mentors and mentees. Successful mentoring is dependent on the combination of the above discussed attributes and qualities required by mentors. The application of mentorship is diverse and dynamic, and the employed strategies for mentoring are differentiated across environments. For a student nurse, mentoring is all about exploiting care potential, developing care giving skills, enhancing performance in the area of placement, and becoming that nurse that the student want to be. The discussed attributes can be used to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of the student. Once they have been identified, strategic plans on the mentoring process should be made in the best interest of the student nurse. The idea is to support and encourage the student’s learning process for the purpose of maximizing personal efforts and potential in the nursing field. In that line, performance is critical to account for. Mentors’ attributes and qualities enable them to monitor mentees’ performance as mentoring progresses. By understanding the interests of the mentee, the mentors can customize mentoring to suit individual mentee needs. Consequently, this enhances the ground upon which both mentors and mentees interact. The ultimate achievements realized from the said qualities and attributes of a mentor allows mentors to establish functional relations between them and the mentees. Primarily, mentorship seeks to foster mentee growth and development; this is according to Kilgallon and Thompson (2012). This is done through creating a favourable within which mentors and mentees can interact, thus establishing functional relationships that inform the effectiveness of mentoring student nurses. According to Scott and Spouse (2013), mentors can use their required attributes and qualities to identify what it takes to be a nurse, and consequently employ their findings when mentoring nurse students. A mentor can employ differentiated strategies in a bid to ensure that all available mentoring qualities are fully exploited. However, the strategies employed depend on the actual attributes and qualities that an individual mentor has. The mentor can adopt teaching-learning practices in the mentoring process. Using such practices is strategic in the sense that it hosts the availability posing challenges to the mentee. The process should not be so smooth, argues Grossman (2013) lest the mentee becomes totally dependent on the mentor. Challenging the mentee is fundamental in producing an aspect of independence. On the same note, teaching and learning practices make use of numerous approaches to arrive at the same goal, and this is critical factor in ensuring that the mentoring process is effective. Gopee (2011) maintains that constant communication is essential between mentors and mentees. Without communication, nothing important can be achieved in mentoring. Due to the fact that communication is a critical component in mentoring, it can be used as a strategy in exploiting qualities and attributes of a mentor. The idea is to bridge the formalities and bureaucracies involved when two parties of unequal calibre interact. A transformational approach to mentorship counters formalities and bureaucracy factors to boost strong relations between mentees and their mentors. Gopee (2011) contends that building positive attitudes is important for both mentors and mentees. By basing one’s roles and responsibilities on the qualities and attributes that one possesses, mentors can build a platform within which they are better placed to exploit their full potentials for the benefit of the mentee. This calls for a program that matches mentors’ interests to the roles and duties they undertake whenever they interact with their mentees. In so doing, mentors exploit a critical opportunity to develop their mentoring qualities and/or attributes. Clark (2013) shows that personal assessment and evaluation is another strategy that mentors can exploit to develop their mentoring attributes and qualities. Gopee (2011) affirms that such assessments and evaluations focus on how well personal character, personality, traits, qualities, and attributes are aligned to mentoring. This alignment consequently allows mentors to identify any loopholes or gaps within the mentorship system, and take the necessary course of action in that regard. On the same note, mentors can identify their strengths and weaknesses, thus design mechanisms or programs that are tailored towards enhancing the development of mentoring qualities. In conclusion, it is evident that mentoring is a fundamental practice in diverse and dynamic environment. In the educational setting, mentors and the practice of mentoring play a vital role in learner growth and development. This paper shows that there many and differentiated characteristics or enabling traits that enhance mentors’ work. On the same note, such traits or characteristics are employed differently by different mentors, but the common denominator is that the whole process is designed to develop the mentee over time. In relation to enhancing mentoring qualities, a number of strategies towards this move have been presented. The key idea in the paper is to highlight the process of successful mentoring subject to mentors’ characteristics/traits, their influence, and the ways through which mentoring qualities are enhanced. References Aston, L. & Hallam, P., Successful Mentoring in Nursing, SAGE, London, 2011. Clark, C. M., Creating and Sustaining Civility in Nursing Education, Sigma Theta Tau, London, 2013. Elcock, K. & Sharples, K., A Nurse's Survival Guide to Mentoring, Elsevier Health Sciences, London, 2011. Gopee, N., Mentoring and Supervision in Healthcare, SAGE, London, 2011. Grossman, S., Mentoring in Nursing: A Dynamic and Collaborative Process, Springer Publishing Company, London, 2013. Hinchliff, S., The Practitioner As Teacher, Elsevier Science Health Science Division, London, 2004. Kilgallon, K. & Thompson, J., Mentoring in Nursing and Healthcare: A Practical Approach, John Wiley & Sons, London, 2012. Kinnell, D. & Hughes, P., Mentoring Nursing & healthcare Students, SAGE, London, 2010. Price, B., Becoming a good mentor, Nursing Standard, 19(13), 2004. Price, B., Mentoring: the key to clinical learning, Nursing Standard, 18 (52), 2004. Scott, I. & Spouse, J., Practice Based Learning in Nursing, Health and Social Care: Mentorship, Facilitation and Supervision, John Wiley & Sons, London, 2013. Walsh, D., The Nurse Mentor's handbook, McGraw-Hill International, London, 2010. Read More