Mentoring the whole person, not creating a ‘mini-me’

Photo by The Creative Idea on Unsplash

Recently, one of my mentees received reviewer comments on a paper, and they asked me for feedback on the response letter they had prepared. I felt that their response was generally fine, but I told them they could have been a bit more direct. The reviewer had been incorrect in many of their assumptions in the first place, and the response could have really hammered that home. My mentee said something to the effect of well, you can get away with that, but I need this reviewer to like me.

They were right. I was giving them advice that would work for me (maybe), but not for them, at this stage in their career, in pursuit of their current goals. That moment reminded me of times in my own career in which my mentors’ advice would leave me shaking my head, thinking that works for older, more successful men, but I can’t get away with that as a woman just starting my career. In each of these cases, we all meant well as mentors—we wanted to help our mentees succeed—but we weren’t mentoring the whole person standing in front of us, we were mentoring a younger version of ourselves.

It can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking, what worked for me will work for them. But today’s trainees are navigating a very different world: they’re facing shifting norms in our fields, evolving (and often expanding) job demands, and a more competitive market. The way we did our jobs 20, 10, or even 5 years ago is vastly different from how we conduct our work today. On top of that, each mentee brings their own lived experiences, constraints, and visions for success. What worked for you may not work for them at all. And that’s ok.

As a mentor, your job is isn’t to shape mentees in your own image, but to help them shape themselves. It’s recognition of who they are and who they want to become, not replication. Effective mentorship means helping your mentees grow in their confidence and in their skillsets in way that helps them find success as they define it. You’re there to help them find that definition. This means that different mentees may need different courses, different technical skills and professional development training, different mindset shifts, different workloads and timelines, and/or different networks. But, regardless of where they want to go, you can help them get there.

Here are 5 simple things you can do to support your mentee’s individual journey to success:

1. Be curious. What does your mentee want to achieve? What are their values? What are the barriers in their way? What possible solutions have they tried? Which other strategies would they be comfortable with? Ask open-ended questions so that you can understand more about your mentee’s experiences, personality, and tolerance for risk.

2. Share your stories, but adapt your guidance. You can still share what worked for you in your career. In fact, your mentees may appreciate hearing that you struggled and still found a way through. But adapt your guidance to their specific needs; there may be a component of what worked for you that will work for them, but maybe that component needs to be paired with other strategies, more appropriate to the current market.

3. Check your ego. The way you achieved success isn’t the ‘right way’; it was simply the right way (or one of many right ways) for you. Your mentee’s path to success may look different from yours—but it will be the right way for them.   

4.  Celebrate their choices. Remember that your vision of success may be their worst nightmare, and vice versa. Validate their vision, and when they achieve their version of success, celebrate joyfully with them.

5. Be ready to learn new things. Supporting your mentees, and being mindful of how their lived experiences and definitions of success are different from yours, means that you may have to learn new ways of succeeding. And sometimes you’re probably going to give the wrong guidance—or maybe the guidance you give would fit another mentee’s situation better. You have to be willing to sit in the discomfort when things don’t go as planned, reflect, and acknowledge what didn’t work. Show your mentee that you are learning too, and together, you will find the right solutions to help them achieve their vision.

By tailoring your mentorship to your mentee—and not to a past version of yourself—you can help your mentees achieve success in a way that feels authentic for them. In turn, this will strengthen your mentoring relationship; after all, you are seeing your mentee for who they truly are—a whole person with their own set of experiences, values, challenges, and dreams.

What assumptions are you holding about what success looks like for your mentees? If you want to become a more values-aligned mentor who supports the whole individual, let’s talk—book a discovery call.

Next week: When mentorship gets messy: what to do when it doesn’t all go as planned.