The Secret To Successful Mentoring Relationships
By Elizabeth Ruske and Peg Rowe
The most common reason mentorship partnerships fail is because the relationship is NOT mentee-driven. When the expectation or assumption is that the mentor is the one managing the relationship, the mentoring partnership is already in danger.
A mentee-driven mentorship relationship means that the mentee takes responsibility for creating and driving the relationship. This works because the mentee is the one ultimately responsible for her own career path and development, and the mentor is solely responsible for making themselves available at specific times.
It’s easy for a young professional or new mentee to wait for the mentor to take charge; yet that’s exactly how to sabotage the mentoring relationship from the start. When the mentee takes this deferential role to the mentor, the typical outcomes are that either the relationship never gets off the ground or it turns into a hierarchical manager/advisor relationship instead of true mentorship.
In a mentee-driven relationship, the mentee:
Communicates career goals and professional interests
Prepares agenda topics and questions
Asks for help in key areas
Shares openly about personal and professional factors, being appropriately vulnerable and authentic in the process
Sees the mentor as a partner and a guide, not a manager
Manages the logistics
In a mentee-driven relationship, the mentor’s role is to:
Be available during the scheduled conversations
Be responsive to questions asked
Be honest about their experiences, professionally and personally
Ask challenging questions that support stated career goals and development
Be an advocate for their mentee’s career
Establishing mentorship relationships as mentee-driven is a significant step toward success.
