Mentoring is a powerful personal development tool and can be extremely effective in helping people of any age and any walk of life to progress in any area of their life. Mentoring has been used for many years in the sports world and is becoming increasingly popular in the business world. At Potential we use mentoring to assist young people to change their behaviour in order to achieve their goals.
A key component of successful mentoring is the relationship between the two people involved – mentor and mentee. The success of this relationship is, like any other, reliant on mutual respect and trust. To a large extent a mentor relies on similar experiences to help the mentee with their achievements. For this reason each mentee is matched according to criteria designed to ensure the relationship is successful. We aim to connect mentees with mentors who can guide and advise on issues important to the mentee.
Our mentors act as a sounding board and guide to their mentee. They give them the opportunity to think about different aspects of their lives, the challenges they face and what changes they would like to make. Our mentors boost confidence and self belief whilst questioning and challenging current thought processes and behaviours. Potential provides mentees with the opportunity and space to increase self awareness and explore new ideas in a safe environment.
Potential’s mentoring programmes are person focused. Whilst each mentee must be referred through a very formal process, once the assessment is complete and the programme is established, our mentoring style is less formal. We promote a partnership style relationship in which the mentor and mentee each have defined roles and responsibilities.