Me and my mentor: A personal and career development journey
By: Amalie Lindqvist Nielsen, 24.06.2020 - Translated to English: 25.01.2024
Throughout his career, Kim Valdemar Larsen has been very attentive to how he could develop himself. He decided to get a mentor in the fall of 2019, following his completion of a master’s in management. Kim wanted to be challenged in his own role as a leader, as well as on a personal level. Together with his mentor, Diana Hammeken Lunding, Kim embarked on a personal and professional development journey, which proved to be inspiring, exciting and motivating.
For Kim, it was important that his future mentor would be honest and challenge him professionally. Throughout the mentoring relationship, Diana managed to get Kim to reflect and see things differently both in his career and personally. By not just listening, but also being able to ask the difficult questions and provide feedback, she forced Kim to look inward. According to Kim, the work you do in between meetings is the difficult part. As a mentee, you must try to apply and try out the things you talked about with your mentor. Development requires energy and Kim has been motived throughout the whole process. After each meeting with Diana, he became even more convinced that getting a mentor was the right choice.
Diana has had a long career at Danske Bank, where she has held various leadership positions over 25 years. Her leadership experience was important in the match with Kim, who wanted a mentor with a strong leadership profile, who could become a confidential sparring partner, and someone he could lean on in his role as a leader.
Diana has been an internal mentor in Danske Bank for many years and only recently tried out the role as an external mentor. According to Diana, she has noticed a significant difference in her own performance as an external mentor, as she has had higher expectations for herself and thus also feels the need to be more professional in her role as a mentor. "In terms of context, the mentee's company is unknown, and this has added an extra dimension to being a mentor, because it gives me insight into other companies than my own, which again adds a whole new dimension to being a mentor", says Diana.
The mentoring conversations provides a much-needed break
The mentoring relationship has given Kim a much-needed break which he believes most people would benefit from. According to Kim, "it applies to most people's right now that we rarely stop and think about what we are doing. Therefore, I think that the mentorship, whether it had been with Diana or not, is a welcome invitation to just take 1-2 hours, where you get to stop and talk with another person who is not prejudiced, and who prompts you to reflect on some things”.
Both Kim and Diana agree that it is a clear advantage for a mentee to be fully aware of what they want to get out of their mentorship. To set clear goals that become the agenda for the process. According to Diana, one of Kim's strengths was that from the beginning he had decided he wanted to progress and was mentally ready to engage in a mentoring relationship that could sometimes become quite intense.
According to Kim, it is important to be aware that as a mentee, to get the most out of a mentoring relationship, you need to be open, receptive, and attentive to the possibility that there may be things that hit close to home. It is about embracing everything your mentor has to offer, which according to Kim is a "cornucopia of knowledge".
Mentor's motivation
It is not just Kim who has benefitted from the mentoring conversations. The decision to become an internal mentor at Danske Bank was not initially very conscious, but over time, Diana experienced how rewarding the mentor role was for her, and thus it became a conscious choice to become an external mentor.
"No matter how much pressure I have experienced at my job, I have always been able to find the time, motivation, and good spirits to take on the responsibility I had as a mentor, because it gives me so much energy. Therefore, it was not a hard decision for me to make, to try the role as an external mentor”, says Diana.
Diana would recommend others who are considering becoming a mentor to do so, as it is very rewarding. At the same time, she believes it is important that, as a mentor, you are ready to ask critical questions, but also prepared to question your own beliefs - in other words, you must be able to practice self-reflection to find the experience of being a mentor rewarding.
The value of a mentor
According to Kim, the conversations have been completely infiltered, and there has been trust and confidentiality between mentor and mentee. Diana believes that one of the most important skills a mentor should posess is the ability to gain the mentee's trust and create a relationship based on confidentiality. It is also important for a mentor not just to be a shoulder to lean on, but to consciously vary their responses. According to Kim, having a mentor has been healthy for him, as Diana has been able to give him some resistance. "Earlier, I was not a person who thought very much about things, so it has been healthy for me to have someone who holds me accountable and asks if I am reacting in the most appropriate way in various situations", says Kim.
Throughout the mentoring relationship, Kim has become more aware of his strengths and weaknesses. He has also gained a better understanding of what motivates him, as Diana has given him time to reflect and helped him see things in a different and new way. As a person, Kim is development-oriented, which has been significant for his success in the mentoring relationship. Moreover, Kim has been reassured that he needs to see the bigger purpose in what he does.
Diana also takes away something from all the mentoring relationships she has conducted, which often involves realizing that other people have completely different worldviews. What she will take away from her latest mentoring relationship with Kim, she does not know yet, "you can ask about some of my earlier mentees, and I would know. But it always comes after a while", says Diana.
