Finding the Right Mentor for You

Do you want to find a mentor who will help you take your career to new heights?  Great.  Are you wondering how do you do it?  You can’t exactly open up the Yellow Pages and flip to M for “Mentors.”  This is a relationship that could prove to be one of the most valuable of your professional life and should be entered into with serious thought and commitment.  If you have a positive experience with your mentor, not only will your career shine as a result, but you also will be more likely to engage in that same type of relationship from the other perspective at some point.

Rene Petrin, founder and president of Management Mentors, recently offered a guest post on Dan McCarthy’s Great Leadership blog.  In the article, he shares eight steps take you should take in pursuing the best mentor to further your career.  He suggests that you begin by assessing yourself before even thinking much about the potential mentors in your field.  What are the particular leadership skills that you want to sharpen?  What is your leadership style, or what would you like it to be?

Once you’ve established your answers to these questions, that Mr. Petrin writes that you are ready to think about who might make a good fit and explains how to make that initial contact.  Please check out all eight steps he suggests in the article.  If you’ve made finding a mentor one of your professional goals for 2012 and you have yet to get started on that task, this piece may be the jump start that you need.

If your career was accelerated or improved thanks to a mentor in your field, how did you find this person?  On the flip side, how do you recommend a person approach you if he or she is interested in asking you to be a mentor?

About the author

Joe Lavelle

Joe Lavelle is the Co-Founder of intrepidNow. Prior to that Joe was an accomplished healthcare IT executive and career coach with a record of successfully meeting the business and technology challenges of diverse organizations including health plans, health delivery networks, health care companies, and several Fortune 500 companies.

Joe is also the author of Act As If It Were Impossible To Fail, available on Amazon.

   

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