Impact of Mentorship to the community.

We have come a long way in learning the Importance of mentorship both to the mentor and mentee. The benefits of mentorship are pronounced especially to the directly involved parties. Even so, there is the Impact of Mentorship to the community as well. How does the community and world at large get to benefit from the mentorship activities going on in it? The mentorship activities could be in the different types, one on one mentorship, peer to peer, online mentorship and group mentorship.  Have a look at What is Mentorship and the different types of mentorship.

Let’s explore the Impact of Mentorship to the community.

1. Promotes Unity. Mentorship consists of relationship(s). It involves having a connection. The mentor and mentee learn how to cultivate and grow relationships, how to go about being vulnerable to another person and that person to you. Mentorship requires you to seek to understand others as you make yourself understood to them. The same principle of growing relationships that is learnt in mentorship is the one which is applied in all other relationships that aren’t mentorship based. When people relate better they are happier and it promotes a sense of unity in the community.

2. Cultivates responsibility and accountability. Mentorship means that there are people being looked up to. Everyone that is in such a position instinctively becomes responsible. They are put in a position where there is the need to put the best foot forward. You wouldn’t want to preach water and drink wine. The recipient of mentorship cultivates accountability, they need to do assignments, research, ask questions, strategize and meet their set goals. The whole mentorship relationship breeds responsibility. This can be extended to all spheres of life. Responsibility over the success as well as the mistakes. Responsibility at home and at the work place as well. Mentorship promotes wholeness.

3. Helps in passing on of meaningful skills, hence growth in different fields. Mentorship imparts skills and Knowledge in different fields. In various fields where there is mentorship, Technology included, relevant skills are passed on to the mentees. This gives them a head start. Mentees don’t have to seek for answers that are already there. Consequently, this saves a great deal of time for them. They are able to scale-up to the level of their mentors and be introduced to new challenges. Mentorship points someone in the direct direction and follows them up to see if they are advancing in solving problems in the field. Across board, the weight of growth that comes from mentorship is incredible.  The ultimate impact of this is growth in the different fields and finding of solutions to problems that are long overdue.

4. Fosters an Empathetic community. Mentorship allows us to be listened to, to be heard and to be respected. In parallel to this it allows us to do the same to other people, to invite them into our life, to direct and hear them out. Mentorship is a mirror to not only the strengths of the parties involved but also to the weaknesses. It introduces us to the truth that no one is perfect, we are all flawed. We are all human and having issues that we are dealing with. This situation allows people to empathize with each other. In mentorship we get to share in the feelings of other people and foster an empathetic community.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

5. Assists to bridge the skills and knowledge gap. Different individuals in the community are at different level skills. Mentorship allows to fill in the gaps that come with such a situation. There is always someone more skilled, who has the answers to what you may be seeking. For the bigger issues to tackle, mentorship creates an opportunity for teamwork in addressing them.

6. Impacts new Generations. As blunt as this may sound, we aren’t immortal beings, we all have an ‘expiry’ date attached to us. Of course to most of us, this is nothing pleasant, in fact we live almost oblivious of this fact. Irregardless, this is the way for all of us, when we are gone, will there be a piece of us, in terms of skills and knowledge that we leave behind? Mentorship gives the community the chance to train the new generations and share their expertise. The generations that we leave behind receive from mentorship to make the world a better place all together. The new generations will in turn pass on the skills and reproduce the ripple on other generations that will come.

7. Eliminates self-centeredness and focuses on interdependence. Selfishness is something that seems to come too naturally. We tend to pull the rope towards our side. Mentorship steps in and challenges selfishness. It causes a paradigm shift. It causes people to begin to look out for other people, to invest time in them, to desire to see other people become as good as they are in a field, if not better. Mentorship humbles the community and allows us to see the good in other people and to walk with them. Interdependence is an advantage to the community. People are able to support others and grow themselves too.

“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.”
― Mother Teresa