Informal mentoring: the importance of bringing someone along

As we interview people for positions in our workplace, one of the main things I look for in their resumes are articles and presentations. I’m not looking for the number of articles or journals their work has been published in, or the titles of their presentations, but instead the number of authors. Specifically, did they collaborate with other colleagues in their work or did they go it alone? Are they the sole author of their work, always the first author, or are they on a list of authors with different positions?

That tells me a lot about whether the person works with colleagues or goes it alone.

Mentoring is defined by Alleman (1984) as “a relationship between two people in which one person of higher rank, experience, or expertise teaches, guides, or helps others develop both professionally and personally” (p. 329) . Successful mentoring relationships have been proven in nursing to help close the practice gap, improve job satisfaction, foster collegiality, establish team building, and improve clinical and academic achievement (Matin, 2017). Formally establishing mentors for new hires and new graduates initiates the intra-professional relationship that nurses desperately need to be successful and to break away from the very nature of their emotionally and physically demanding roles as healthcare professionals.

Even if your workplace has a formal mentoring program or not, we need to think about how we can take someone with us. Informal mentoring is when an experienced person chooses another person to mentor. The difference here is the term “chooses”. This should be in the mind of any experienced person and can be a relationship that benefits both mentor and mentee. Start thinking today about someone you can mentor and how you can take one or all of these steps to become an informal peer mentor.