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 Mentoring
Skills
On
the following pages are specific skills that can be used as part of
the mentoring relationship, and allow mentors to feel confident &
successful as they fulfill their expectations & the goals of their
mentees. These skills involve:
- Increasing
interpersonal communication between yourself and your mentee
- Encouraging
listening to your mentee
- Discovering
commonality and connection between you and your mentee
- Increasing
the level of trust and communication between you and your mentee
- Encouraging
your mentee to develop alternative solutions
- Increasing
the level of participation and personal responsibility of mentee
Giving
Advice . . . one of the important components of mentoring
It
is easy for a mentor to fall into the trap of having all the answers.
Dispensing information is often required; it's quick and easy and
may make you feel good about yourself as a mentor. But if you only
give advice, much of it fails to stick.
The
balancing act involves coaching your mentee to discover insight on
her/his own and also to give advice when you believe it is most needed.
Suggestions
for Giving Advice
- Give advice
only when your mentee has done some preliminary thinking on his/her
own, and only after you have listened carefully and thoroughly understand
the issue at hand. Don't jump at the chance to provide your insight
too early in the conversation.
- Don't give advice
only when your mentee sees you as the "answer person" who
has the golden piece of information. You both may get very used to
the idea of his/her asking and you answering.
- Give advice
when your mentee ask for and needs it. One of the most frustrating
mentor responses to the question, "What do you think I should
do?" is, "What do you think you should do?" It often
feels manipulative to the mentee; you apparently have an opinion but
for the sake of mentoring, you are withholding it.
- Provide direction
and give advice when your mentee is stuck. Then ask: "How do
you think my advice would apply to your situation?" The goal
is for the mentee to make the outcome his/her own. Your advice is
meant only to get him/her "unstuck."
- Try telling
a story which is a relevant example from your career or lifetime experience.
You may feel that telling a story would be interesting and appropriate
and that it would help illustrate a possible path for the mentee.
Handled well,
giving of advice can be your most appropriate mentoring action!
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