Mentor - tasks and opportunities

You as a mentor can take on different roles in this mentoring relationship: as a consultant, knowledge mediator, supporter, door opener, and/or contact person in various networks. This way you provide a realistic insight into your professional field. You are very familiar with the internal structures of your institutions and their informal circumstances so that you can share this knowledge with your mentee. You should be prepared to talk about your personal experiences, i.e. to reveal something about yourself. The content of the mentoring relationship is primarily based on the interests and questions of your mentee.

 

Your activities may include the following tasks:

  • Strengthening the competences of your mentee and contributing to her development
  • Passing on professional and life experience, by providing insights into professional fields of activity and activities as well as explanations of one's own working style
  • Transfer of knowledge about informal structures and rules of science and business
  • Use of your own network and contacts for your mentee
  • Advice on questions of career and life planning as well as support in finding self-determined solutions

 

There are numerous opportunities that speak for engagement as a mentor:

  • Passing on experiences and values to an interested and grateful listener
  • Encouraging self-reflection about one's own professional biography and working style
  • Gaining knowledge through the confrontation with new ideas, views, and behaviors and consciously dealing with certain issues
  • Open and confidential feedback on your own public image and your own work behavior
  • Professional and personal exchange with young professionals
  • Realistic insights into the current problems and questions of young women scientists
  • Strengthening and expansion of the own management and consulting competence
  • Influence on personnel development and support for the gender-sensitive promotion of young talent
  • Expansion of own contact networks
  • Strengthening the image as a good manager

 (Extract from the German Mentoring Guide)

Last Modification: 16.12.2021 - Contact Person: Webmaster