How to be a Good Mentor
We all have significant life experiences and lessons to share with others.
It’s just that not everyone possesses the necessary abilities to successfully explain their expertise. Being a mentor will need you to hone those skills and others.
When you become a mentor, you establish yourself as a trustworthy leader in the company. Taking on a mentoring position may help you build your leadership abilities and provide the best service to your mentees.
What is a mentor?
A mentor is a trustworthy advisor who offers advice and assistance when required. The idea is for you to assist the individual you’re mentoring—often referred to as the mentee—in achieving their dreams and ambitions.
The connection might be informal or formal, but it is always professional. As both individuals learn and evolve, the ground rules may shift.
Mentor connections might range from a single session to the rest of your career. Some mentors assist employees with several challenges on the job, such as obtaining promotions, taking on new duties, and creating interpersonal connections.
What mentor do
Every mentoring connection is unique; some continue for years, while others last only for one coffee date. A mentorship program may be part of a long-term partnership. A short-term connection may entail assisting the mentee with a specific situation.
A long-term relationship, for example, may involve planned meetings in which the mentor shares their experience, expertise, and contacts with the mentee.
A chat concerning the mentee’s professional plan may be part of a short-term relationship.
Finally, mentors share three characteristics. They inspire, motivate, and support. They provide mentees with the resources they need to attain their goals and overcome obstacles.
Mentor’s roles list:
Share knowledge and experience.
Motivated and inspire
Provide guidance and advice when asked
Listen when require
Provide new perspectives and opportunities
Type of mentors
Life mentor
Some of life’s most surprising and challenging hurdles have nothing to do with a career. Life mentors often function outside of working contexts, catering to a broader range of scenarios and supporting mentees with developmental or emotional difficulties.
They can provide an impartial perspective when dealing with situations involving complex integrations of work and personal life, and they can assist mentees in reaching their own judgments when making crucial decisions.
A life mentor, unlike a professional mentor, does not have a superior position in the hierarchy. The foundation of trust is the most crucial aspect of selecting an appropriate life mentor – someone with whom you can openly interact and whose opinion you appreciate.
Career mentor
Career mentors fulfill the conventional mentoring role by providing relevant expertise and insight while broadening your professional networking chances.
When looking for possible job mentors, search for someone older who has been in your shoes worked in your professional sector and encountered comparable challenges.
Although entrepreneurs like to trust their own gut impulses, rash decisions may nearly always benefit from the sharpened eyes and experiences of another.
Mentors can provide guidance on a variety of topics, from workplace problems to career-changing decisions. It’s a priceless asset that can’t be purchased – and it’s critical for success in today’s economy.
Practical Mentor
A practical mentor is someone you could consult if you need advice on how to tackle an issue or circumstance in the real world.
While a practical mentor might inspire you, their primary purpose is to provide you with practical advice that you can instantly use in your career or life.
Dr. Travis Bradberry comes to mind as a practical mentor to whom many individuals may seek help. His excellent insights on emotional intelligence can assist in the resolution of several interpersonal challenges inside corporations and teams.
Peer Mentor
Peer mentors, unlike traditional mentors, are often acquaintances of a similar age with a considerably smaller gap in life experience than formal mentors.
In this regard, a peer mentor is similar to you and can connect to the challenges you face both within and outside of the job. They are reachable as your peer and may be contacted without the same formality. Finding an effective peer mentor may be difficult.
Typically, a peer mentor is a buddy that you trust to enable informed decisions, give valuable information, and, ultimately, be a good influence who pushes you to be the best version of yourself.
How to be a great mentor
1. Get to know your mentee
A mentee-mentor relationship, like any other, works best when time is invested. Learn about your mentee’s long-term objectives, education, and wants/needs within their present employment by getting to know them on a personal and professional level.
Request an interview or a one-on-one meeting with your mentee. This allows you to devote more attention and time to getting to know your mentee on a personal and professional level. The greater your bond with your mentee, the more both of you will benefit.
2. Less talking, more showing
People are considerably more inclined to believe something if it is demonstrated to them. This is known as “suspending your disbelief” when reading a book.
That’s why we can read fantasy stories about hobbits and dragons without cringing and exclaiming, “Impossible!” A skilled writer communicates their tale by showing rather than telling, which allows the reader to suspend their disbelief long enough to appreciate the story.
You may be asking what this has to do with mentoring, but it’s worth noting that the concept of showing rather than telling works just as well in interpersonal communication.
3. Let your mentee the freedom to decide
While you may have more expertise than your mentee, it is critical to guide them while still allowing them to make their own judgments. You can provide guidance as they make their own judgments.
This is a natural component of the learning process and allows your mentee to learn via trial and error. It also allows your mentee to continue to grow and gain confidence in their decisions without you.
4. Socratic method
The Socratic method is a way of conducting a discussion in which the objective is to encourage someone to get to the conclusion you want them to come to by asking them questions.
If they arrive at the conclusion on their own, they are much more likely to take it seriously. It’s amazing how much of a difference it makes to question “do you think that’s a good idea?” rather than “that’s not a good idea.”
Using the Socratic technique prevents people from feeling as if you’re talking down to them and telling them what to do, even if you’re still influencing the broad course of the conversation.
It works so effectively that it is a frequent method among street campaigners who are attempting to persuade others to support their cause.
They utilize it because it works, and it may also work for your mentoring.
5. Be objective
Being impartial about your mentee’s job choices and ambitions is a critical component of being a good mentor.
It is not your responsibility to pass judgment on your mentee’s personal or professional position; rather, it is your role to encourage them as they advance in their careers.
The more impartial you can be with your mentee, the more they will appreciate you and your advice, and the better the relationship will be overall.
6. Always listen
The capacity to effectively listen to others is a skill that not everyone possesses, but it is one that can be practiced and improved.
Listening to someone demands a certain level of focus, especially if you want to answer with actionable advice. You can’t just sit there with your ears open. You must pay close attention to both the words and the way they are spoken.
You must take notes, ask questions, and generally participate in what is being said if you wish to be a good listener. Writing things down helps you remember them, and asking questions ensures that you grasp what is being stated.
You can’t give someone the finest counsel unless you understand where they’re coming from.
7. Provide honest feedback
The mentor-mentee relationship requires constructive criticism, so don’t be afraid to seem harsh as long as your approach is relevant, honest, and caring.
Giving regular feedback from the beginning might help them develop as professionals by ensuring they have high standards for themselves.
8. Go outside your comfort zone
One of the most common errors that mentors make is forgetting (or choosing to overlook) the fact that various people have different methods of accomplishing things.
As a result, they might impede creativity and originality by pushing individuals to do things one way rather than their own.
The most effective mentors are those that are naturally interested in everything around them.
Rather than symbolically trying to fit square pegs into round holes, they collaborate with the individuals they mentor to discover the optimal middle ground. These sorts of mentors are also more likely to be seeking ways to develop themselves, and they will not simply do things the way they have always been done.
However, mentors must distinguish between venturing outside of their comfort zone and taking needless risks.
9. Celebrate achievements
If your major contact with your mentee is about how to handle difficulties at work, it may appear that many of your talks focus on negative subjects.
A smart mentor recognizes that the finest mentorships entail more than simply work and problem-solving, so make time to celebrate your mentee’s accomplishments to keep the atmosphere positive.
Encourage your mentee to discuss their honors and accomplishments. How you choose to recognize their accomplishments is entirely up to you, and only you can choose what works best for your mentoring.
You should take a genuine interest in the connection and consider it an essential aspect of your life if you want to be a successful mentor. An effective mentor is invested in his or her mentee’s success.
10. Be a role model
If you are in a leadership position or have more experience than your mentee, they will look up to you. Be conscious of your workplace behavior and how you present yourself verbally and nonverbally.
A good mentor will be enthusiastic about their profession and the firm, so how you write and reply to emails is one way your mentee will learn how to behave at work.
Furthermore, if a mentor isn’t enthusiastic about the mentee, it will be obvious, and the mentorship is unlikely to succeed. Or, if they are unhappy in their job or with the firm, it will show in their lack of excitement, which can also harm the connection.