Both mentors and mentees realize many benefits from mentoring, as do organizations that encourage, structure, and support mentoring. Effective mentors develop the leadership capacity of their mentees while increasing their own skills. They transfer their knowledge and expertise back into their organizations. They nurture the alignment between employee aspirations and organizational imperatives, and they create depth and loyalty within their organizations. Leaders who take mentoring seriously and handle it effectively have a profound impact.
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A successful mentor acts on behalf of a mentee, with an eye to the well-being of the organization or profession. In the service of that mission, successful mentors
develop and manage the mentoring relationship
survey the environment for threats and opportunities
sponsor the menteeās developmental activities
guide and counsel
teach
model effective leadership behavior
motivate and inspire
As you read about and reflect upon these functions, keep in mind that they are appropriate in different amounts in different relationships. You do not have to ādo it allā in order to be a mentor. But as a mentor, you may be called upon to perform any or all of these functions. It depends on the needs and wants of your mentee, as well as what works for you. The following sections will inform you about what is involved with each function so that you can better prepare yourself to mentor someone in your organization or profession.
Develop and Manage the Mentoring Relationship
Mentoring relationships start in different ways. Formal programs in organizations, for example, often match a mentor with a mentee based on wide-ranging criteria. In such cases you may be assigned a mentee; you may or may not have much say in the matter. Other formal designs create tentative pairings and permit mentor and mentee to get acquainted and determine whether they think they will work well together before designating the match as final. Organizations sometimes host mixers where potential mentors and mentees can meet each other; mentors or mentees may be told to seek out a partner. You might find yourself contemplating a mentoring relationship through informal opportunities as well. Someone may approach you and ask you to mentor him or her. You may spot someone who shows great potential and initiate a conversation with him or her. Or you may feel a personal calling or need to help someone else develop and then deliberately look for a suitable person. However your mentoring relationship gets started, there are some key points to keep in mind as you develop the relationship.
A fundamental consideration is that mentoring is collaborative. Itās not something you do to someone; itās an activity you do with someone. The mentor and the mentee share responsibility for the success of the process. Successful mentoring stands on a foundation of rapport, collaboration, respect, trust, and commitment. To create that foundation, you should address aspects of the mentoring relationship such as readiness, selection, getting acquainted, building trust, setting goals, self-disclosure, and monitoring. You should approach these aspects of the relationship from a collaborative perspectiveāthat is, you and your mentee are jointly responsible for how things turn out. The following sections address topics that will help you develop and manage a mentoring relationship:
Successful mentoring stands on a foundation of rapport, collaboration, respect, trust, and commitment.
ā¢ your readiness to be a mentor
ā¢ selecting a mentee
ā¢ getting acquainted with your mentee
ā¢ self-disclosure
ā¢ building trust between your mentee and yourself
ā¢ handling the power differential between your mentee and yourself
ā¢ setting goals together
ā¢ monitoring the mentoring process and mentee follow-through
ā¢ clarifying expectations
ā¢ potential pitfalls of the mentoring experience
Readiness
If you are considering being a mentor, your first consideration should be whether you are ready. Mentoring can be an intense, personal, long-term relationship, so you must be ready and willing to commit your time and attention and to make yourself available. There may be implications to being a mentor in your organization or profession at any given time. The questions on page 9 will help you determine your readiness. As you reflect on these questions, it can be helpful to discuss your responses with a trusted colleague who can serve as a sounding board.
Consider getting some training that will help you feel more comfortable and be better prepared to serve as a mentor. You may want help improving your communication skills or influence style, for example. You may want to better understand what constitutes a developmental experience for someone. You may want to build greater confidence in your ability to perform the mentoring functions discussed in this guidebook.
If you are already mentoring someone, the question of readiness is whether youāre ready to take on another mentee. How many would be too many? There is no absolute answer to this question. Your answer would depend on your total workload and scope of responsibility. Most leaders during the peak productivity years of their careers can barely find the time to mentor one person, let alone several. However, more senior leaders, transitioning to a slower pace, have the breadth and depth of experience to be marvelous mentors and may have more time. For such people, serving three or four mentees may be workable. The key...
