What it Means to Be a Great Mentor
And the skills you need to succeed
If you want to be a mentor, this quote from Steven Speilberg should resonate deeply with you.
The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image, but giving them the opportunity to create themselves — Steven Spielberg
Mentorship doesn’t mean creating another version of yourself. Your real goal is developing someone to become the best version of themselves.
Taking on this monumental task is an admirable quality — one that will ultimately benefit both you and your mentee.
But, to become a great mentor, you need certain traits. Traits that are varied and challenging to master. More so because the definition of a mentor can vary from person to person and business to business. It’s because of this, I’m focusing on the most widely applied and personally essential skills I could find.
You Listen
In part, your focus should be on listening. The best mentors I’ve ever had spent far more time listening than talking. They were interested in what I had to say rather than being interesting themselves.
They could take my fifteen-minute frustrated rambling and narrow it down to a few next steps. Or, ask questions that forced me to think for myself.
Sometimes this meant sharing stories with similar narratives to my current issues. Other times they’d be lost in thought for a few minutes trying to rehearse how they’d handle it now. And, importantly, how they would have handled it at my age.
More often than not, I was happy just to get insight and be heard. It’s always felt natural to provide deeper context to my mentor because they have experience in my field. They know the questions to ask to get me to my next steps, and I rarely felt as though I was burdening them.
A Mentor Isn’t a Teacher
The mentor/mentee relationship isn’t about teaching. Though this often happens. Mentorship is a peer to peer relationships where one individual is more knowledgeable. But, because of the unique conditions affecting any career, it’s impossible for one life to mirror another. This quality makes mentorship a knowledge trade-off rather than a teaching experience.
A mentor may be able to apply some of their life experience to a mentees challenge, but it’s unreasonable to believe their advice will be a perfect fit. This is a critical component of mentorship that both parties must understand.
Instead, a mentor has the opportunity to learn how they’d apply their skills to a new challenge. Critical thinking skills are pivotal for effective mentors. A mentor must take the knowledge they’ve gained and figure out how they would handle a situation they are only tangentially aware of.
Your Knowledge is Questioned Constantly
Acting as a mentor means your skills and abilities are always questioned. Not by your mentee, but by yourself. The more your mentee leans on you, the harder their questions become. This will cause you to place higher expectations on yourself.
This can cause Impostor Syndrome or self-doubt if you’re not positive in your answers. This can easily place a strain on the relationship.
It’s critical you understand your mental health and the attitude you bring to each meeting. If you don’t feel comfortable answering a question, you need to have the confidence to say so. You may still be able to provide support without giving a perfect answer. And, in the end, that might be all your mentee is looking for.
You Act as a Relationship Builder
Your mentorship could be a mentees first interaction with a real advisor. You must take time to understand your mentees motivations, goals, and weaknesses. Every person will come into a new role with different levels of excitement, stress, curiosity. They make take weeks to come out of their shell but then blossom into the brightest socialite.
It’s up to you to coax your mentee into sharing their needs.
If your mentee seems timid, they may believe that only the best questions are worth your time. This can cause them to hesitate. They may wait too long to bring difficult challenges to your attention.
You should be able to express, with clear and concise direction, the best way to reach out for help.
Over time your mentee will learn how to make the most of your mentorship. And, ideally, a mentee will gain confidence in answering their own questions.
“Be approachable, accessible, and available when really needed.”
Self-Awareness
Everything so far has focused on your mentee/mentor relationship. But, our interactions with others often color our ability to tell stories and provide advice. You may relate to your coworkers and peers in an entirely different way than your mentee.
If they’re typically reserved, your brash confidence may not work for them. It’s essential to understand how your psychology influences the stances you take with others. And, if your mentee is different, how they can incorporate your style in their life.
How you View Your Mentee
It’s equally important to understand how you view your mentee and how they view themselves. Do you seem them as an audience, a trainee, a collaborator, or something else? This is an extension of self-awareness, one that will determine the flow and feel of each meeting.
The presumptions we have about our mentee can limit how beneficial the relationship is to them. If you view them as an ‘audience,’ you may do far more speaking than necessary. While they may learn something about the time you faced a harrowing financial situation, it may never apply to your mentee.
The same is true if you see them as a trainee. If you believe your job is to build them into a competent worker, you may assume that their training experience was the same as yours. It’s possible they may excel in the specific area you found challenging when you first started. If that’s the case, they won’t need your training insight, but they will want your advice on handling a difficult coworker.
The same assumptions could be passed from your mentee to you. Setting expectations is the first step to building a strong mentorship.
It’s almost guaranteed that these expectations will change as your relationship matures. As your mentee grows, they may want to act as a collaborator now that they understand where they need to develop.
Guidelines
What’ I’ve mentioned above isn’t an all-encompassing list mandatory for every mentor. I don’t know that I’ve ever had a mentor that checked off every trait in this article. But what keeps me thinking about them and the lessons they taught me is how they strived to do right by our relationship. Simply put, they wanted me to succeed.
If you’re reading this in the hopes of improving your mentorship skills, you’re already in the right mindset. Incorporating the above traits into your practice will only enhance your mentees life.
If you’re looking for a mentor yourself, here’a guide to help you find one!
