What makes a good mentor? There are six critical attributes that will make you the best mentor you can be, according to Karlin Sloan
Mentors make a powerful difference in the lives of the people they help – and being one is often as rewarding as having one. Mentors offer wisdom, guidance, and stories of their own experiences that can help others to achieve great things in their own careers.
There are six critical attributes that will make you the best mentor you can be.
1Ostentatious listening
The phrase ‘ostentatious listening’ was coined at Google during a study on high performing teams. The teams that succeeded the best practiced a kind of intense listening that enables the speaker to feel truly heard. What makes for ostentatious listening? Focusing your attention on the person you are mentoring and really listening not just to what they are saying, but how they are saying it. When you listen intently you help others to feel confident, clear, and valued. You also get ideas of how you can best help when you truly understand the capacities and trajectory of the person you’re mentoring.
2Socratic questioning
Socratic questioning, named after Greece’s most famous teacher, Socrates, is a method of educating others through asking questions of your student. Plato defined Socratic questioning as ‘the disciplined practice of thoughtful questioning [which] enables the scholar to examine ideas and be able to determine the validity of those ideas.’ When you are just giving advice without asking questions, the person you are mentoring may not take full ownership of those ideas. When you ask them powerful questions that lead them to their own conclusions – priceless.
3Storytelling
You’re a mentor because you’ve got the kind of valuable experience your mentee is looking for. They need your stories. Telling stories of your own career is enormously valuable and becomes more so when you use those stories strategically to illustrate a point. When someone is feeling down, telling them a story of how you triumphed over adversity can provide them with a roadmap. When they are attempting to navigate a tricky political situation at work, tell a story of how you handled one yourself. These stories will stick in the mind of your mentee and give them a sense of confidence and possibility.
4Optimism
Do you believe that your mentee will have a positive outcome? If you can, project your vision into a positive future that can enable your mentee to have their own vision and belief that they can achieve it.
5Networking to connect
The very best mentors connect their mentees to others who can help them in their career development journey. You may be able to facilitate informational interviews for them with colleagues of yours, invite them to networking events, or introduce them to connections that you intuitively know would help down the road.
6Resilience
Finally, it helps to have that most valuable quality to demonstrate to your mentee – resilience in the face of challenging circumstances. Bring your own resilience to the table and let them know how to develop their own resilience attributes, like persistence, positivity, and confidence. Re-affirming your own resilience stories is powerful for them and for you.
Whether you are a formal mentor through a mentoring program or an informal advisor to young people in your orbit who are seeking your help, these six attributes will go a long way to helping others be their very best.
Karlin Sloan is a global leadership & development coach, CEO of Sloan Group International, and author of Inspiring Leadership for Uncertain Times. For more info see www.inspiringleadership.io
