This Is How Mentorship Can Help Build Future Creative Leaders
- Adilla
- Jun 13
- 5 min read
If you think that you stop learning once you step into the career world, away from your school and classes, you may have to change that perspective. You never really stop learning as you progress in life, especially if you intend to be a leader in your career.
Creative leaders understand that to get better, you need someone who can guide you. Or, as the saying goes, “Every great creative was once mentored.”
Mentorship may feel like you are being babied in your work if you are a fiercely independent individual, but you would be surprised at how impactful it will be for your career progress. Mentoring culture isn’t about a teacher-student relationship (or outsourcing a teacher to the company); rather, it’s about a supporter and a supported.
What better way to be a leader than through a leader who has been there for you from day 1? By establishing a mentorship culture, you will be able to build the skills and experience to become a well-equipped creative leader.
Table of Contents
Why Is Mentorship Important?
Mentorship isn’t just about teaching these individuals leadership skills but also supporting them in different ways in achieving their career goals, among other career-related things. Not only that, mentors also offer encouragement and help mentees maintain accountability with their work progress.
However, this can only work if the mentee is willing to commit to learning with the mentor. They should be open to feedback and actively implement the lessons of their mentor. What would be the point of a mentor-mentee relationship if one side does not uphold their responsibility on the receiving end?
This is also a chance for the mentee to learn a more hands-on approach to their industry. The benefits of directly learning from your own creative leader outweigh learning from a separate source. Additionally, your mentor would leverage your abilities and help you improve any of your downfalls.
What Makes One a Good Mentor?
So, you’re ready to promote mentorship culture in your company. To effectively mentor someone with potential for creative leadership, there are a few key considerations to keep in mind. As a mentor, you need to have active listening and empathy when it comes to guiding your mentee.
When it comes to giving them questions, make sure they are open-ended and encourage them to explore on their own, even if you’re there to guide them. Feedback should be constructive and specific while also acknowledging your mentee’s achievements and celebrating their success. Be ready to share your experiences and insights as you guide and inspire your mentee. Lastly, be sure to respect their autonomy and decisions.
With this in mind, you are ready to create a culture of learning, sharing, and mentoring in your company.
How To Structure Mentorship in The Project
Now that you know what is needed to be a mentor, how should you structure mentorship in your day-to-day work?
To have a successful mentoring culture, there are some practices that you should follow. First, like any successful project, define your objectives and expectations that you would want in your mentorship. It is essential that you clearly state these to your mentees.
If you wish to have multiple mentor-mentee relationships in your workspace, match them according to their skills, compatibility, and personal goals. Ensure that your mentors are equipped with the resources and guidelines to help them better their role. Finally, schedule a regular check-in time for your team to evaluate the mentorship. This can ensure that mentees benefit from the programme and that mentors are not overwhelmed.
How Creative Project Management Tools Can Support Mentorship?
To better support your mentors and mentees, try implementing your project management tools in the mentorship programme. By having a tool in hand, you can keep track of feedback, progress, or even remind the team what the goal of the mentorship was in the first place.
For example, our creative project management tool, TESSR, has an Insights module that provides key performance information for each team member. This will help mentors understand their team better in terms of workload and performance. With this feature, it can enhance transparency in their mentorship experiences.
Besides that, TESSR has another feature called Review. This module, especially helpful in the creative field, enables visual collaboration where teams can provide in-context comments and feedback. Not only will it prevent confusion or misunderstandings, but it can also help keep track of feedback and criticism of their work.
By utilising creative project management tools, mentors and mentees can improve communication and collaboration between them and keep track of their progress in their mentorship.
An effective mentoring programme helps employees—both mentors and mentees—become the best versions of themselves. With more productive assets, they can boost overall productivity and business success.
Conclusion
When it comes to building future creative leaders, mentorship culture will help boost employees onto the path they want to go in their career success. By directly having a mentorship relationship in your respective company, there is no better way to get hands-on experience.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
As a mentee, what can we do to improve ourselves with our mentor?
When you have a mentor, you have the chance to grow alongside them. Make sure you clearly communicate your goals and expectations. Don't hesitate to ask for advice and feedback so you can apply and practise what you learn. Additionally, be sure to express your appreciation and gratitude to your mentor.
Would these practices apply to mentoring artists?
It definitely would. It is not uncommon for artists to have apprentices; rather, it is a common practice for artists to have a mentor to further improve their abilities and achieve their goals.
I’m not in a corporate company, but I want a mentor. What can I do?
This article could help you briefly with that, as it lists approaches that you can use to find yourself a mentor.
Author Bio
With a background in Arts English, Adilla has been a casual writer for various hobbies like parodies of animated shows and plots for board games. She loves to read anything and everything from fantasy stories to articles on tips and tricks. Now an advocate for mental health and effective project management for the creative industry. Currently, Adilla resides in Malaysia and is a creative writer at TESSR. To know more about her, check out her LinkedIn.
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