Who is good “material” for a mentor? First of all, it is a person who has experience, wants to share it and likes people. These three elements are essential and none can be ruled out.
Such a person is able to focus on the development of the mentee, rather than plugging the deficiencies on his side. In terms of mentoring work, it is complete and arranged. Of course, she may not know something, have doubts, still learning, but at the same time she must not be incompetent at it. Going into a mentoring session, she needs to be able to distance herself from the feelings that accompany her on a daily basis: having anxiety, learn to talk about it, ego – put it on the shelf. Distance – this is a hugely important characteristic of a good mentor/mentee.
Equally important is the genuine ability to enjoy someone’s happiness, to appreciate and celebrate the achievements of the mentee you “merely” accompany. Remember, the mentoring process happens outside of you, outside of your control and responsibility. You derive satisfaction from the fact that this is accomplished by the mentee.
Another quality of a good mentor is humility. My experience unequivocally shows that the best mentors/mentees are not those who push themselves to the forefront and outshine others with their persona, but people who approach their abilities and skills modestly and with a lot of humility. Because mentoring is all about not dominating the relationship. You need to know your worth, know what you can do, but don’t boast about it, just have a willingness to constantly develop.
A good mentor/mentee can talk about values. Why? Because mentoring relationships fall apart mainly due to conflicts at this level. And while there is no right set of values or views, it is important that your system be consistent, or at least not at odds with the mentee’s system. To find out, you need a conversation, because only then will you know how far apart you are. It doesn’t really matter whether one is a liberal or a conservative, whether one has leftist or rightist views – this manifestation is less important than what’s underneath – the reasons behind one value system or another.
A good mentor knows mentoring. It’s not enough to be an expert in a field, you also need to know an effective method of sharing that experience. At this point, I would advise against anyone who thinks they will gain this knowledge by merely reading books or watching videos. Nothing can replace professional training courses that teach the mentoring method – a little bit of craftsmanship, a little bit of artistic method of serving mentoring clients professionally.
A good mentor has a need to grow, doesn’t settle into his role, but constantly works to improve himself – in the mentoring relationship he asks for feedback, constantly undergoes supervision and educates himself.
