On Your Bookshelf: The Mentor’s Guide

By Andrea Newell (Grand Rapids, MI)

Does your company have a mentoring program? Were you considering signing up to mentor a colleague? You have great timing – January is National Mentoring Month.

We previously reported on the benefits of having a mentor at any stage in your career, but how do you actually go about mentoring someone? Dr. Lois Zachary, President of Leadership Development Services, contributed her insight to our article, but she is also the author of The Mentor’s Guide: Facilitating Effective Learning Relationships.

The Mentor’s Guide gives you a concrete process to follow in order to build a successful and mutually beneficial mentoring relationship. Zachary’s approach is much like a business project, and as the mentor, you are the project manager.

First, Zachary says, do some analysis. Look over your own life and experiences with an honest eye and a clear perspective. “Sit at the feet of your own life and be taught by it,” she writes. Journey back over the roadmap of your experiences and isolate the greatest impacts and biggest roadblocks you’ve encountered. Then determine what events or accomplishments contributed the most to your growth and development. This is the unique experience and perspective that you have to offer a mentee.

Now you can begin preparing for your relationship. Zachary equates it to designing a collaborative learning experience. Before you even meet your mentee, plan as you would for an important meeting or project. What is your timeline? What are your indicators of success? How much time will you devote to the relationship on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis? How much do you know about your mentee – their level of knowledge or what they expect out of the mentoring relationship. Misjudging your mentee can start things off on the wrong foot.

A mentor can be one of the most powerful influences on a mentee’s career and life, so taking the time to define some parameters, goals and guidelines is a good idea. Mentoring can involve the exchange of confidences and sensitive information, both personal and professional, so Zachary advocates setting forth an agreement to keep discussions confidential. Additionally, as with any project, you should define each person’s responsibilities.

Now that you have laid the groundwork, you can begin your project, or mentoring relationship. Once you have begun, Zachary has advice on how to keep things moving forward, how to motivate your mentee and help them keep their goals in sight. The development, or enabling, phase is the longest. Just as with any project, as the mentor, teacher, and project manager, you must persist and keep your mentee on track and work toward meeting your mentee’s milestones.

During this time you will see your mentee grow, but there will always be mistakes and setbacks. Zachary gives excellent instruction on giving meaningful feedback and overcoming obstacles. This advice is useful in mentoring, at work and in life. Even though Zachary’s approach is a business-like one, she affirms that a successful mentoring relationship breeds respect, trust, and open communication. As we discovered in our previous article, many mentors and mentees also become long-time friends.

However, as with every project, there comes a time when the mentoring relationship needs to come to a close. Mentees can benefit from having more than one mentor and some mentoring relationships outlive their usefulness. It is your job, as the mentor, to recognize this situation and take steps to bring the mentoring aspect of your relationship to a smooth and gracious end. Zachary promotes celebrating all that you have learned and accomplished together.

As a mentor, you dig deep to define your personal stumbling blocks and illuminate your triumphs so that someone else might learn from them. You employ all your teaching and managing skills to inform, nudge, and advise, while allowing your mentee to make their own decisions and mistakes. You hone your listening skills to hear what they are saying and get to know your mentee both as a person and a professional. Zachary gives you examples, tools, and worksheets so you can take a systematic approach to mentoring. The personal side is all up to you.

If your mentoring relationship is successful, your mentee is stronger and better equipped to navigate their own professional waters. If your mentoring relationship is successful, you’ve learned to be a better manager, a better teacher, a better listener, and you’ll be stronger and better equipped to navigate your own professional, and personal, waters.

After you’ve finished The Mentor’s Guide, you can visit Dr. Zachary’s mentoring blog for more information, advice, and more books on mentoring.