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Mentoring is a learning experience for the mentor and the mentee, with the result being that both should be able to build on their leadership skills.
If you are thinking about mentoring an employee at your organisation, here are some tips to help you be as effective as possible.
Don’t solve problems for them
Helping a mentee with leadership development is more than just about telling them how to solve problems, you’ll need to encourage them to come up with their own solutions.
Empowering your employees in this way will ensure they build confidence and become better at overcoming workplace challenges on their own.
Listen
Being a good listener is a central part of many a successful leader, and mentorship relationships are no different!
Ask your mentee plenty of open-ended questions and make sure to take in everything they say. This will help you to tailor your advice to suit specific situations.
Encourage, but don’t stifle
The temptation many mentors have is to simply turn their mentee into a clone of themselves!
Instead of giving too much guidance, provide just the right amount of encouragement so that they can build on their own arsenal of skills.
Keep regular contact
Make sure to organise structured meet-ups with your mentee, so that you can provide feedback on their performance and they can ask questions.
Pick a time that suits both of you and always stick to it; whoever you are mentoring will appreciate the fact they can rely on you when they need support.
Get to know them
While it’s not strictly necessary to need to know a lot about people you are training or coaching, mentoring is different.
It’s important to get to know your mentee, so ask them about their dreams and aspirations in order to provide the best guidance