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The Power of Mentoring

While I was in College I applied for a job at the Florida Department of Children and Families Office of Child Care Regulation. This office housed an internal call center named CCTIC focused on child care credentialing and answering questions related to the training required to become a child care professional in the state of Florida. In the interview for that job, I was asked where I saw myself in 3 years. I told them that I was interested in holding the position that the interviewer held as the Call Center Manager. I thought that perhaps it was risky to say that in the interview, but it seemed to sit well with the interviewer. After my hire, I approached the interviewer, who was now my supervisor, and asked them to be my mentor. I really meant that I wanted her job and I knew that she wanted a position at a higher level too. We worked together often, and after a short while I became a Team Lead for our department. As the Team Lead my supervisor worked with me and we developed a closer relationship. I was their “right hand man” so to speak. We began to work on team management, organizational skills, and office diplomacy. After about a year, my supervisor got a promotion and I assumed the role of Call Center Manager. It was such a surreal experience to tell my interviewer that I wanted their job and then to get it! Even more of an impact on me was the experience of learning under someone who was really interested in seeing me success, personally and professionally. More recently, I entered into a mutual-mentoring relationship with a very close friend of mine. This friend started a journey into spirituality, and consciousness about a year ago and I’ve learned so much from them. I’ve known them since we were 13 years old in middle school. Since then we’ve grown closer and farther apart, until recently. We do check-ins every Sunday to debrief the previous week. We set goals for how we can develop ourselves into the people that we want to be and hold each other accountable to those goals. Our work is mutually supportive and mutually mentoring in that one is not the master and the other is not the student. We each have unique qualities of value that we help develop in one another. These mentoring situations both arose out of the need for personal and professional development and from a close personal relationship where both parties trust one another, and maintain confidentiality (Gay, 1994). While I’ve been in many mentoring relationships over the years, these two had the biggest impact on me as one brought me great success within a state agency and the other is still actively providing me with grounding and perspective that I will carry with me through the rest of my life.



Image From: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-digital-self/201709/10-key-rules-building-powerful-mentor-relationships
References Gay, B. (1994). What is mentoring? Education + Training, 36(5), 4-7. doi:10.1108/00400919410062257

A500.7.3.RB The Power of Mentoring


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