31 August 2021
Anna-Lena Behringer a Business School Alumna, tells us about her experience and feedback on mentoring through the Edinburgh Award for Effective and Responsible Leadership.
I am Anna-Lena from Berlin. Currently, I am a Project Manager at an audio agency that creates podcasts for brands, in particular in the sports industry. I am also a voluntary Marketing Assistant to a German women's cycling team that aims at becoming a professional racing team.
In 2016, I graduated with an MSc Marketing at the Business School, since then I have worked as an SEO and Online Marketing Consultant and in 2017, I founded my own business, where I work as a remote freelance Content Manager and Writer.
What was your motivation for becoming a mentor for the Business School Edinburgh Award?
During my personal and professional development, I made both mistakes and discovered a lot about my surroundings and myself. I learned about methods and techniques that helped me create and live life on my own terms.
Learning all of this by myself has taken years and has also been hurtful. I felt lost after my graduation and the years after. I wished I had learned this way earlier — at school and at university. I know that feeling of being stressed about one's own future. That is why I wanted to share my learnings and experiences with the students, so they can feel more confident about their future.
What was particularly valuable about group mentoring compared to one-to-one mentoring? If you had any challenges, how did you overcome them?
During the group mentoring, it was very important to us that we created a personal and safe environment where the mentees could share their thoughts, experiences, and feelings. They met fellow students who felt the same way, they found common ground, but they could also learn from each other.
In the beginning, it was quite challenging to make the sessions interactive and have the mentees talking rather than us. My co-host and I allowed ourselves to be vulnerable and show that we were not perfect so when we worked in breakout rooms the students could be themselves.
What was the thing you enjoyed the most about mentoring this year? Can you share a memorable moment with us?
In our last session, we asked for feedback. Two students said that they did not feel anxious anymore, instead rather confident and that they now knew what their next steps should be.
If there is one thing I wanted to achieve through mentoring it was exactly that feedback.
What advice would you give to other alumni considering leading on group mentoring for the Edinburgh Award next year?
Find a topic that bothered you the most and in the end made you stronger — that is authentic, and for the students the most valuable.
Other feedback we received from the students was, they really enjoyed the different media and presenting styles we used (slides, pictures, breakout rooms, timed writing, discussion rounds, worksheets to complete as homework, and so on.).
And last but not least, be curious about the student's stories, be positive and have fun with each other!
Anna-Lena Behringer, Business School Alumna and Jennifer's Mentor.