Professional Mentoring Unpicked #2

Photo by Masjid MABA on Unsplash

I wrote a couple of posts at the end of August into September, on the practice of #ProfessionalMentoring and the key elements that underpin it. This is the next post of the short series wherein I'm reflecting on and unpicking each of those aspects and how they inform my role as such a Mentor.

Key Aspect 2 - Guidance, Support, and Encouragement:

“The role of a professional mentor goes beyond simply giving advice. It involves active support and positive reinforcement.”

I see my role here being to help the mentee recognise the potential they have still to unlock, to build their confidence, help them celebrate wins along the way, and to stand with them when things get tough.

Some of my clients need support in raising their voice, internally and externally. We’re working on them showing up in the workplace, emphasising their own effectiveness and impact, sometimes being confident enough to say ‘no’.

In some instances, we’re working on them developing an external voice and presence, finding their tribe and engaging in discussion and debate whilst building relationships with fellow practitioners and other, more experienced practitioners, thinkers and commentators – online and face to face.

I’m listening and watching, amplifying and commenting publicly and also providing individual feedback and encouragement privately.
 
Some of my clients are people I consider to be my peers, in respect of career history, experience, seniority and – dare I say it - longevity, whilst others are at an earlier stage of their professional career.

I meet each of them where they are and we work out from there accordingly.

If any of the above sounds of interest and you think you could benefit from some professional mentor support, feel free to contact me for a no-obligation exploratory conversation, at niallgavinuk@outlook.com or via LinkedIn https://lnkd.in/eKGzSBz8

 
#Mentorship #Leadership #ProfessionalDevelopment #CareerGrowth

Professional Mentoring Unpicked #1

I posted on Monday 25/08 about the key elements that underpinned the, for me,
most up to date and aligned description of modern professional mentoring available.  

These are: 

• Experienced and Trusted 
• Guidance, Support, and Encouragement 
• Focus on Mentee's Development 
• Skills, Knowledge, Career, and Personal Growth 
• Trust, Open Communication, and Mutual Respect 

And I said I'd post about and unpick each of them to test them for myself and with you. This is the first of those posts. 

 Experienced and Trusted 

“Mentors aren't just anyone; they bring valuable experience and have earned trust through their expertise and integrity.” 

Let’s unpick this… 

“Mentors aren't just anyone”. 

But they could be. And more of us should be. 

We all develop and bring our accumulated knowledge, skills and experience, both personal and professional, into and alongside our work and career. The older we get, the more of each we develop and employ. 

As colleagues, managers, learners, our behaviour makes an impact, whether we are aware of it or not. Sometimes in a good way, sometimes not. 

But if we bring our full selves, behave with respect, openness, curiosity – and we deliver, and help others to develop, grow and deliver – then we are already mentors. You may be in that space already but just don’t know it yet. 

“They bring valuable experience and have earned trust through their expertise and integrity.” 

When I first announced I was starting my professional mentoring business, many in my network very kindly responded by amplifying and commenting on that post. 

Several endorsed the qualities they considered I would bring to the role of mentor and my client conversations and outcomes. They included “strategic insight, genuine care, perspective, calm guidance, executive-level mentor skills, depth of experience, humour and humanity, and wisdom. 

These accolades are not given lightly. 

They reflect years of graft, delivery and impact. They reflect years of learning, application and working with others in a consistent, open, honest and transparent manner. And thereby, trust has been earned. 

I’m already in conversation with several prospective and actual clients and I hope that they already feel that we are meeting in that respectful and impactive space. 

What's your thinking here? Anything missing? Any questions? Comments? I'd love to hear your views.

Next up, I'll unpick Key Element 2: Guidance, Support, and Encouragement 

In the meantime, if you think you, a colleague or friend would benefit from entering into such a professional mentoring relationship, feel free to contact me for a no-obligation exploratory chat.

Professional Mentoring Explored (first posted on LinkedIn 25/08/25)

A view along a railway platform through
the open slam door window of a train

hashtag

Before I started my #ProfessionalMentoring service in August, I challenged AI to give me 'the current and most accurate definition of a professional mentor'.

The resulting description that seemed to align most closely with my thinking was this...

"A professional mentor is an experienced and trusted individual who provides guidance, support, and encouragement to a less experienced person (the mentee) to help them develop their skills, knowledge, career, and personal growth within a professional context. This relationship is typically characterized by trust, open communication, mutual respect, and a focus on the mentee's goals and development."

I take exception to the description of the mentee as "a less experienced person" as I see the mentoring relationship encompassing all levels of professional experience. Indeed, I am already mentoring a couple of experienced peers.

That said, it's a pretty accurate summary of what I do.

There then followed a list of 'key aspects' which expand on the above.

* Experienced and Trusted

* Guidance, Support, and Encouragement

* Focus on the Mentee's Development

* Skills, Knowledge, Career, and Personal Growth

* Trust, Open Communication, and Mutual Respect

I'm going to do a short series of follow-up posts, taking each of those elements in turn, examining, expanding on and sense-checking them here and on LinkedIn.

Look out for these over the next few weeks.

And of course, I'll be grateful for any comments, experiences, challenges, feedback or enquiries.

hashtag#ProfessionalMentoring hashtag#LnD hashtag#Mentor 

Full Circle

Photo by Daniel Lloyd Blunk-Fernández on Unsplash

I recently took voluntary redundancy and amicably parted company with my employer.

This, however, was not my first rodeo. In a career of some 40 years, I have taken redundancy three times, for various reasons, none of which reflected fault on my part, but which were business, organisational or personal adjustments. 

The challenge for any individual in these circumstances is to try not to take it personally, nor  consider it as the end of one’s career, but to see beyond the immediate impacts, to look for the opportunities they may present, rather than to catastrophise and assume the worst.

“Easy for you to say”, I hear you say; “you were only part-time - and weren’t you going to retire soon anyway?”

Yes, I was. But I have learned over the years to adopt a more philosophical attitude to these challenges.

 

I recognise here that I write from a more privileged position than many - I was approaching voluntary ‘active retirement’ next year, (and had previously indicated so to my employer); I was already working part-time and flexibly, mostly from home; our children are grown up and our mortgage will be paid off by the end of this year. And I had some potential consultancy work already lined up. Many of my colleagues were not in such a reasonably comfortable place.

So I reflected that maybe it was time for me to step aside, to embrace my ‘active retirement’ as a freelance consultant/coach/mentor, whilst facing into a personally eventful 2025, with significant birthdays, anniversaries and other family celebrations ahead. In so doing, I took myself out of the pool for what my job was to become, hopefully creating the opportunity for other ‘at risk’ colleagues to step in or up, depending on where they were in their careers and personal circumstances - which is what happened.

Now it feels like I’ve come full circle. 

I started my working life as a professional actor. This meant i spent most of my early working years ‘out of work’ (i.e. not acting) but in that time I worked in many other roles - fruit-picker, postman, delivery driver, barman, shop salesperson, follow-spot operator, audio-typist, office manager - with the occasional acting job to keep me on my chosen career path. Acting contracts ranged from 6 weeks to 10 months. And then I’d be back on the job hunt again whilst typing solicitors’ letters, pulling pints or delivering building supplies. It was the original ‘gig’ career.

It was only after I walked away from an acting career which wasn't going anywhere quickly enough, to pursue more security, home and family building, that I realised that along the way I had developed resilience, adaptability and lots of transferable skills. And that I had NOT wasted the first 12 years of my working life - I had been preparing myself for whatever career paths lay ahead.

The story of how I became an IT Trainer, Training Manager and Learning Consultant over the next 30 years is for another time. Sufficient to say that those skills I developed in my early career and my capacity to deploy them and to learn new skills has got me to where I am today.

As we all know, the world of work is changing fast. There is no such thing as a job for life any more. Everyone will face redundancy at some point in their working lives, maybe more than once. Lifelong learning and a preparedness to grasp new skills and opportunities are skills in themselves and it behoves us to embrace them, irrespective of what sectors we may work in.

As I update my own CV, in readiness for another late career flexible working ‘gig’ life, I wonder how you see yourself, your strengths, your successes and what you can do to future-proof your employability. For example, one of the questions - amongst many - I’m asking myself right now is, what skills have I got that AI doesn’t and, if I have any, how can I leverage them over the next few years? And is that even a sensible question?

What questions are you asking yourself about your future of work and how are you preparing yourself for that? Let me know if I can help you with those questions or help you plan your future career strategy. My contact details are in LinkedIn.