Mentoring Today’s Youth into Tomorrow’s Leaders

January 31, 2022
As we come to the end of Mentoring month, the Wavemakers team wanted to share some thoughts and feedback from Wavemakers mentors around the impact and benefits of mentoring - for both youth and mentors. 

Becoming a mentor is a rewarding opportunity to deliver real-life experience, learnings and advice to the future leaders of tomorrow. For students and youth from diverse backgrounds, having strong mentors who provide insight, guidance and can act as sounding boards during their educational and professional journeys can often be the difference between success and stagnation. 

For Martha Murray, Director of Public Affairs, Sustainability and Stakeholder Engagement with the Cement Association of Canada, serving as a mentor to Wavemakers participants provided an opportunity to connect with diverse students from across the country and help guide them as they tackled some of society’s most pressing issues.

“The energy, enthusiasm and ideas from participants were amazing. The innovative platform allows students, industry and experts to connect in a way that is both unique, effective and personal,” says Murray. “Its inclusive focus and flexibility provides opportunities to students that have traditionally faced barriers to participation.”

And studies show that strong mentorship experiences are important in the professional development of diverse students and workers. A 2017 study of 1,000 North American professionals found that women and ethnic minority talent viewed mentorship programs as valuable to their career development. And a Catalyst report found that mentoring is often credited as a critical aspect of successful career development for diverse populations, with those who have had experience being mentored typically having better career outcomes. 

Strong mentorship can take many forms, but at its core it creates a safe space for students and youth to work through challenges, ideas and their own professional development. 

“You're shepherding them through a problem to solve or a challenge that they're facing and keeping them on the path of self-discovery and self-awareness, but without giving them the map,” says Jamie Aitken, Director of Business Development at Rizing and a Wavemakers mentor. “You need to give your mentees space to explore and you need to create a safe environment for that to happen.”

Creating an environment where students feel they can be authentic and open is crucial for a beneficial experience, adds Joe Stadel, Manager of Product Strategy at Convergence.Tech. As a Wavemakers mentor, he takes on a facilitator role, guiding and stepping in to help as needed, making sure to take pauses to reflect on progress or gaps to encourage learning.   

“Mentors can help provide feedback and advice in ways that others may not be able to. They can be a third party with helpful insights and experience to help guide a person to greater heights,” he says. 

Sometimes that means helping students and youth fend off the dreaded impostor syndrome. For Michelle Betbadal, Staff Content Designer for IBM, mentorship offers youth a chance to see they aren’t alone and can help them envision themselves achieving their goals.

“Because it's only when you have someone in a certain industry, or any industry talking to you about the challenges and obstacles they’ve faced, do you realize we’re just regular people,” says Betbadal. “You have to hear it from someone though.”

Being a Wavmakers mentor is an opportunity to be a source of positive reinforcement for youth, she adds. “I bring a sense of support and encouragement,” she says. And that support can come from people outside your field of study or discipline— and in fact, says Betbadal, branching out can help expose students to new ways of thinking.

“They just have to want you to succeed.” 

The experience is integral for helping students develop the skills they need to thrive in their professional lives, and to identify and hone the ones they already have. 

“As you go through the work of college, sometimes you lose sight of how the tasks are relevant in the world,” says Stadel. Being an effective mentor in the program means helping draw the connections for students between their ideas and schoolwork and its application in the professional realm.

“I believe having opportunities for youth and students to engage with mentors starts to help them see the relevance of the work and where they can see themselves making an impact in the future,” Stadel adds. 

Having a trusted mentor to help prepare students and young professionals for rapid workplace changes is also key to ensuring their success. It comes down to helping develop future-proof skills, says Stadel. “These skills really are critical to be employable.” 

For Aitken, being an effective mentor means not trying to teach these skills but showing them in action.

“In a mentorship situation, it's more about igniting the flame and creating an environment where those types of hard-to-teach skills are better developed,” she says. “Skills like innovation or leadership are easy to talk about, but to actually experience it while doing or growing into those competencies is much more powerful.”

Ultimately, it’s through that open and safe learning environment that the reciprocal mentorship relationship is so mutually beneficial. 

“It's a very rewarding experience — because you're contributing to the development of others,” says Aitken. “But there's as much coming back at you in terms of understanding different experiences and perspectives and ways of thinking.”

About Wavemakers

The Wavemakers program is a first-of-its-kind work-integrated learning program that leverages cutting-edge, accessible virtual reality technology and forward-thinking speakers. Wavemakers provides post-secondary students from diverse backgrounds, experiences and perspectives with the opportunity to come together, develop and cultivate future-proof skills, and build long-lasting connections with industry leaders, to help their transition into the workplace. It’s about providing meaningful opportunities to a diverse community of future leaders who can tackle today’s big challenges with even bigger and bolder ideas that will carry us into a more positive and inclusive tomorrow.