How to be a Great Mentor
Great mentors help us become ourselves.
Great mentoring is more than developing skills, helping people create connections, and navigating organizational politics.
How to be a great mentor:
#1. Great mentors practice self-reflection. It’s a great loss to arrive at a station in life without knowing how you got there. You must see your journey in order to guide others on theirs.
You only see the journey by looking back.
#2. Great mentors are still growing. You never arrive. Thinking you have arrived disqualifies you from the circle of wisdom.
#3. Great mentors focus on doing and being. Skill-development (doing) easily surpasses authenticity (being). The result of developing skills without knowing who you are is arrogance, dissatisfaction, and anxiety. This is the challenge all young leaders face.
#4. Great mentors share positive lessons from negative experiences. It’s helpful to warn, but anger and bitterness pollute. You’re a firefighter, not a mentor, if all you know is what to avoid.
#5. Great mentors expose their screwups. Vulnerability is the channel to profound influence. A mentee may believe you’re larger than life. Putting on a show works at the theater, not leadership development.
Lessons from failure represent profound impact.
#6. Great mentors stand up and cheer when mentees show glimpses of authenticity. You understand the rigor of throwing off people-pleasing in order to become yourself. Stand up and cheer when you see it in someone else.
#7. Great mentors make room for others. You aren’t making a mini-you. It’s a great gift to let others shine. Listen more than talk. Focus on them more than you.
This post was inspired by a conversation with Bob Anderson and Bill Adams, authors of, “Mastering Leadership.” Here’s part of our conversation (3:28).
What do you look for in a great mentor?
**More about “Mastering Leadership,” including a fee chapter.
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Great Post.. !! Content vs Context really make sense.
Thanks ragasivasankar. I thought Bob and Bill were very insightful.
“A mentee may believe you’re larger than life.”
Sometimes it helps. The mentee sees you are larger than life, capable of the impossible, then you show them that they can do what you can do. The mentee can go from “They can do it, they’re special” to “*I* can do it as well – so I’m not ordinary either”.
Thanks Mitch. Love where you took this. You shifted the focus back to the advantage of the mentee.
The other benefit of being larger than life, at least initially, is sharing frailties has more impact. If all we have are failures and frailties, we aren’t ready to be a mentor.
Dan in my own life and career I was blessed to have several, very different Mentors from which I benefitted greatly. From some I learned the technical side of business, from others the softer, people side. So I believe having several Mentors is critical. But I also was lucky to watch them age, retire and sadly for some pass away. By watching them from their midlife peak to their later decline I learned even more about life and how to handle my own future.
Great post, thanks, Brad
Brad James
Thanks Brad. I’m glad you shared your story. It’s encouraging.
The idea of watching those who are further down the path comes to mind. It makes me wonder why we don’t do more of this.
Self-reflection and knowing when to take a step back are key attributes of a skilful mentor.
Thanks Albert. I find the hands off vs. hands on decision a challenge. Too much hands off and you don’t care. Too much hands on and you coddle.
Food for thought — how to know when you should step back and how?
I would expand on #6 – Great mentors stand up and cheer when mentees show glimpses of authenticity and growth. Good mentors are like effective facilitators use their mentees feedback to determine where they need to go.
When mentees show that they are starting to “get it,” that is the time to let them take the lead more and then support them from sidelines.
Dear Dan ,
undoubted wonderful post. Conversation really meaningful. Still I am practicing #1.
Even you can see my reflection, when I am sharing my thoughts with you.
Now question comes how does reflection happens in true way coaches and mentors both are helping teams and individual in changing behavioural aspects on desired one.
What is the relation between reflection occurrence and practicing reflection in a designed or in a given circumstances on a individual or xyz group. It’s your reflection how it could affect others or just eventual action or inheritance. What is that or how.
I am sharing with you ” leaders , mentors or coches never speaks to others they keep talking to themselves and world find it as they are sharing but they just talking to themselves and world hearing them very differently but others termed as reflection or I termed as a awakened man just create a energy in lost people” leadership travels many thought process , just analyse discussion of Bob and Bill they are talking each other but it’s a complete enlightenment of listeners or people from their enlightenment.
Practicing reflection is directly proportionate to self awareness and it’s exactly happening to mentees or etc.
I am working on many model of leadership but reflection and reverse reflection on ideology of functional and structural leadership is one of them.
Regards
crazy vinay