Mentoring is a kind of helping relationship that occurs between a mentor, who thanks to the experience he has accumulated over the years is an expert who can enrich the student, using his advice and practical guidance. One of the most important characteristics of this type of helping relationship is the age difference between the mentor and the student. However, this age difference is not a necessary requirement during a coaching process. This process is based on a period of time in which the mentor spends part of his time promoting the personal growth of the other person through his guidance. This teacher is, so to speak, a modelto be followed by the disciple, someone towards whom the student feels deep respect and admiration.
To know the origin of the term mentoring it is necessary to refer to Greek mythology. This is because Mentor was the close friend of Ulysses, who was the protagonist of the Odyssey written by Homer. Just before Ulysses left for Troy, he asked Mentor to take care of preparing his young son named Telemachus to be the one who will supplant him as king of Ithaca. Mentor was forced to fulfill various roles, such as father, teacher, role model, affordable and reliable advisor, inspiring and challenging stimulator in such a way that Telemachus became a very wise, good and sensible king..
The objective of this strategy is to optimize the human resources a company has by putting two professionals in contact, since the dynamics consists in that one of the participants wants to teach what they know and the other is willing to learn from these teachings. A very similar mechanism and with some similarity is the one that occurs in the process called coaching.
Currently mentoring has become fashionable, however it should be noted that it is a very old practice. Throughout the history of man, the master of a trade always helps the beginner so that he can develop his professional career.
