Mentoring, Part 2

Being Mentors

Last week, we looked at some mentoring basics—understanding some of the traditional roles of mentoring. So in this issue, I wanted to get into mentoring from the mentor’s perspective. (We’ll tackle the mentees’ and the organizations’ perspectives next.) Because mentoring is about relationships, understanding others’ roles can help us better understand our own.  

Who Should Be a Mentor?

You!

Okay but beyond that.

Researchers recommend that, in most cases, mentors should be about two or three steps up the ladder higher than their mentees.

Having the CEO mentor the most junior person on the staff may sound great in theory. In reality, they may have trouble connecting on a personal level. The mentor may give too many “Back in my day” suggestions that are irrelevant in the current environment. Meanwhile, the junior may be too intimidated to ask questions they consider too basic or beneath the senior mentor—even though it’s information they need to know. And surprisingly, even career-wise, the CEO might have less to offer than it might first seem: The connections and job openings they hear about may be too far advanced for a significantly junior person to capitalize on.

By contrast, if the mentor isn’t far ahead enough of a mentee in experience and hierarchy, the mentor and mentee may feel they are competing for recognition from more senior individuals or even for the same opportunities.