Five Ways to Be an Effective Mentor

Mentoring is a powerful development tool. Our research suggests that informal relationship-based learning such as mentoring serves as the most consistently important source of individual performance. In fact, in our 2001 Voice of the Leader survey of over 8,000 leaders, “feedback and relationship programs” outranked “experience-based” and “education-based” development programs as the most impactful development experiences.

One of the perks of mentoring programs is that they are mutually beneficial: the mentee gains valuable insight, support and insider knowledge while the mentor improves her leadership skills and gains self-awareness. While mentoring others is certainly a valuable experience, ensuring that your mentee gets what he wants and needs requires both time and effort. Next time you are asked — or agree — to be a mentor, keep these principles in mind for how to be most effective:

Know your role. It’s important to remember that you are not the mentee’s manager, nor are you his parent. You are there to help the mentee develop professionally, not listen to his complaints. In that capacity, some of the most effective things you can do include:

• Acting as a role model
• Challenging the mentee by asking insightful questions.
• Helping to identify skill gaps
• Providing honest feedback
• Sharing expertise

Establish expectations. Before you start working with a protégé, clarify the nature of the relationship and what your work together will look like. Ask the mentee what he hopes to get out of the connection. Explain your stake in it as well. It can be helpful to establish upfront norms for how often you will meet, how you will communicate and what level of confidentiality you both expect. Some find it useful to create a more formal mentoring agreement or contract.

Provide access to networks. There is no doubt that in today’s organizations, internal networks are critical to accelerating performance. Chances are that you, as the mentor, have more contacts in the company than your mentee. Help him expand his network. You can do this by making introductions to people in parts of the organization that he normally wouldn’t have access to or by offering to share his work with some of your colleagues. Job-focused, information-rich networks will have a tremendous impact on improving his potential to be promoted to, and succeed at, the next level within the organization. Remember that this is a two-way street and he may have connections that are useful to you as well: either people further down in the organization or outside of the company.

Check in regularly. Set up regular meetings; these may be bi-weekly, monthly, or quarterly, depending on the mentee’s needs and your availability. Between meetings, check in with your mentee via email. Send her articles that she might find interesting or simply ask her about the issues you’ve discussed face-to-face. Letting the relationship languish is one of the deadly sins of mentoring. Also, be sure to check in on the relationship and continuously assess whether she’s getting what she needs. It’s not uncommon for the needs of either the mentee or mentor to change and you need to be sure your relationship changes with it. Here are some of the questions you might ask:

• Do you feel that I am challenging your behaviors and assumptions, not you as a person or your intellect?
• Am I helping you see the big picture?
• What skills are you building as a result of this relationship?

Keep focused. Don’t let your meetings devolve into whining sessions, or social hour (although socializing is often relationship-building). Keep the focus on things that will be helpful to your mentee’s development. At the end of each meeting, agree on next steps and give him action items that he can work on until you meet next.