Mentoring Skills

Mentoring is essentially a practical exercise and you will find that your skill as a mentor will get better with practice. No two situations are identical and what works within one relationship will not necessarily work for another. There are very few instances when you can apply a standard answer to any particular problem, and thus there are no right or wrong solutions you will be able to apply universally. Nevertheless, there are certain good practices that will help you to tackle the role in a positive manner. Likewise, there are several bad practices to be avoided.

In order to undertake the role of mentor you will need to communicate with your mentee on an ongoing and regular basis. The way in which you prepare for and carry out mentoring meetings can have an important bearing on the relationship. Your approach to the meetings and the logistics used to set the scene for such meetings can be instrumental in the way in which your mentee views you and the process. You will need to consider how to deal with issues that will arise. These may be work related, personal, technical or professional, and each type may need a different approach.

One of the most important ways in which you can assist your mentee to achieve their objectives is by networking. It is extremely unlikely that you will be able give help and advice on all the issues that will arise. However, your experience may well have enabled you to build up a network of contacts that you can use to increase the options open to you. You can also use such networking to enable the mentee to develop and widen their own contacts.

You will find that, if you are to build up a good relationship with your mentee to such an extent that they will come to trust you, you will need to find ways of maintaining contact with them at all times, not just when there are problems. The ways in which you do this will vary and must be in a style that is comfortable for both of you.

No matter how much you work at the mentoring process there will often be times when conflict will arise with third parties who also have a relationship with your mentee. For you to be successful you will have to learn how to deal with these external relationships. Both you and your mentee will have to understand the roles of these other people and you will need to be able to deal with any circumstances that arise without breaking the rules of confidentiality or having an adverse effect on a situation.

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