🌍 Celebrating World Mentoring Day: Why I’m Pro-Mentoring — and Why You Should Be Too…🌍

Lloyd M
Oct 29
3 min read

“Are you mentoring… Are you being mentored?

There are moments in life when someone sees something in you before you see it yourself. They challenge you, stretch you, and sometimes frustrate you but years later, you realise they were mentoring you all along.

I’m a grateful beneficiary and continued beneficiary of mentoring in all its forms. Some mentors offered their time deliberately, others didn’t even realise the difference they made. Some pushed me in ways I resisted, only for me to understand later that growth often feels uncomfortable.

Today, as Founder of L2M Coaching and Mentoring, Co-Founder of the Career Coaching and Mentorship Network, Founder of the L2M Leadership Book Club – Read. Reflect. Lead., and an active member of the Brompton Manufacturing Book Club, I’ve seen again and again how mentoring transforms people and workplaces.

I also mentor through Inspiring the Future, One Million Mentors the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), and the Institute of Leadership because I believe that if you’ve walked a path, you owe it to others to leave signposts behind. So, on this World Mentoring Day, I want to raise a challenge to everyone reading this:

👉 Are you mentoring someone?

👉 Are you being mentored yourself?

If not, perhaps it’s time to start.

💡 The Many Faces of Mentoring

Mentoring isn’t one-size-fits-all. It takes many shapes each with its own rhythm, benefits, and occasional challenges. Let’s look at a few key types:

1. Traditional Mentoring

A senior professional supports a junior colleague, offering wisdom, guidance & introductions.

✅ Pros: Experience and credibility; structured growth.
⚠️ Cons: Can feel one-directional or hierarchical.

2. Reverse Mentoring

A younger or less experienced person mentors a senior colleague often on technology, diversity, or modern perspectives.

✅ Pros: Fresh insight, digital fluency, and generational learning.
⚠️ Cons: Requires openness and humility from senior leaders.

3. Reciprocal Mentoring

A true two-way partnership where both individuals learn from each other.

✅ Pros: Equality, empathy, and mutual development.
⚠️ Cons: Needs clear communication and reflection to stay balanced.

4. Peer Mentoring

Colleagues at a similar level supporting one another’s growth and problem-solving.

✅ Pros: Safe space, mutual understanding, shared experiences.
⚠️ Cons: May lack external perspective if both are too similar.

5. Skills-Based Mentoring

Focused on a particular skill such as leadership, communication, or coaching.

✅ Pros: Practical, targeted, and measurable.
⚠️ Cons: Can miss broader personal development if too narrow.

6. Micro-Mentoring

Short, focused mentoring sessions sometimes just a single conversation designed to create impact quickly.

✅ Pros: Accessible, time-efficient, and often transformational.
⚠️ Cons: May lack the continuity for deeper growth.

7. Virtual Mentoring

Mentoring through online platforms, video calls, or mentoring apps.

✅ Pros: Flexible, global, inclusive, and accessible.
⚠️ Cons: Building genuine rapport takes intentional effort.

🧭 Mentoring Beyond Labels

The truth is, mentoring doesn’t always come with a title or calendar invite.That tough manager who challenged your thinking?That friend who refused to let you shrink your dreams?That colleague who listened when no one else did? All mentors whether they knew it or not. True mentoring is about presence, honesty, and care the courage to invest in another person’s potential and the humility to be shaped by others along the way.

🌱 A Challenge for World Mentoring Day

As we celebrate World Mentoring Day, I invite you to reflect:

Who are you mentoring formally or informally?
Who is mentoring you right now?
What could you learn (or give) if you opened yourself to both roles?

The best leaders I know are always both mentoring and being mentored, giving and learning.

We owe it to the future to help develop others so we need to make mentoring a shared habit in our workplaces, communities and families. Because every conversation that lifts someone up can change a life. I’m pro-mentoring. Always have been. Always will be. And I hope after reading this, you’ll join me in that commitment to mentor, to be mentored, and to keep the chain of growth alive.