What Is mentoring: The first thing I will start with is a definition for mentoring:
“An agreement between two people where the mentor guides, directs and teaches the mentee about aspects of their life”.
This sets the tone for what a mentor should be – you’re someone who is at least competent if not an expert in your main field who is willing to invest your time, and energy into the person (or people) you are mentoring to further and improve their lives. As a mentor you are setting the tone, expectation and trend that whoever you are mentoring should follow with a defined target and a path to get there.
With mentoring you are investing into a relationship. You’re teaching them, more than just the hows and the whys. You’re creating a relationship where you can contextualise the goals, give direction to the targets and refine the processes to improve your mentees practical skills such as programming or public speaking and also the more soft skills such as emotional intelligence and problem solving.
To pull out the main roles that I’ve hinted at a mentor (typically) encompases multiples or all of the following more traditional roles:
A Teacher – Focusing on technical Skills.
A Therapist – Focusing on the Psychological needs.
A Leader – Giving direction towards goals.
A Friend – Giving rise to respect and emotions.
In all of these roles you’ll be addressing needs in one or many aspects of a person’s life so it’s useful to have a comfortable level of competence in assessing technical, psychological and social/economic needs as well as mapping out goals and aspirations.
In order to address these aspects there is another main characteristic and that is the influence of time on the relationship. Provided both mentor and mentee remain committed, mentorships can last last years and decades.
This is because a consultant or a teacher can provide on the spot advice on how to do something but a mentor can help the mentee by not necessarily showing the fastest way to solve a problem but the ‘best’ way to solve the problem which might take into account their other relationships. This can be contextualised by a mentor advising a mentee to evaluate the short term gains vs the long term consequences of their decisions.
What Mentoring isn’t:
But isn’t mentoring just leadership
Yes and no. I argue that all mentors will be good leaders but not all leaders will be good mentors. Most leadership ‘how to’ guides will usually conclude that usually come down to the following:
(A leader is) Not a boss.
Provides the Vision / Gives Direction.
Respected.
Honest, Humble, Hardworking (see other buzzwords etc).
So what makes mentoring so different to leadership then?
Intent and expected results.
That’s it. That’s the main difference I’ve come to find between leaders and mentors. A mentor is willing to sacrifice the time, energy and resources into the person they are mentoring with intents and expected results that do not benefit the mentor in any way.
So let’s dig a bit deeper into those leadership definitions and some other things that separate Mentorship from Leadership.
Not a Boss.
So you might want to stone me for this – but it’s the truth. A leader does not necessarily have to be the most competent person in the team to lead whereas a Mentor as a requirement has to be more competent in more than one area of the person they are mentoring. This doesn’t necessarily mean that what they say has to be acted on but provided the mentee agrees that the mentor is better than they are…its highly encouraged.
This is because a large part of mentoring is going to be doing some practical teaching around how to do something in the best way possible. You’ve heard the adages “Those who can’t teach” and “If you can’t explain it simply you don’t know it well enough”. These two statements apply here. A mentor has to be competent enough to practically perform the task at hand while also being able to simply explain what they are doing.
This also means that if you want to be a mentor you need to be good at what you do and if you’re looking for a mentor you need to find someone who knows what they’re doing well enough to explain it to you in words you understand.
Provides Vision/Gives Direction.
Remember that word I used earlier, intent, this what I was referring to. A leader will give direction into the goals that the leader or team has, and that is fair enough – just look at any political office and you’ll be able to see that we need more competent leaders. What I’m referring to here though is when you are a mentor you’re not training someone in a direction that you have chosen, or you’re not leading someone down a path of your own creation.
As a mentor you should be looking at the skills, personality type and aspirations of who you are mentoring and providing suggestions and solutions on how you can help them reach their goals using methods that the mentee is most suited for.
Respected.
I’ll state point blank that the backbone of mentoring requires a mutual respect between the mentor and the mentee (see my definition on ‘Mentoring’). This respect is not required for Leaders and bosses (Though it certainly does help). I’d challenge you to think of anyone you know who you would consider taking as a mentor or mentee and if you respect them.
This respect can start off purely technical but over time, with both mentor and mentee investing, should grow into a relationship where the mentor can share their failures and what they learnt from them as and the mentee can share their genuine aspiration knowing that they will be understood and guided in the direction that they want to go: and as will all personal things they are generally not shared with untrusted and unrespected people.
Summary.
Assuming you’ve just scrolled straight to the bottom the bullet points are:
Mentoring covers Technical, Psychological and Socio-economic aspirations.
Mentoring is about a long term relationship.
Mentoring is not just Leadership.
Mentoring in not about the mentors goals.
Respect is essential in a mentor/mentee relationship.
I’d encourage you to read some of our other posts around mentorship and get in contact if you have any questions or any suggestions for topics to cover in the future.
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