Mentoring takes more than a phone, email, text message or lunch date. It takes purposeful engagement that leads a person on a path of growth. There are 5 E's s that help a mentor provide that needed support to a mentee. They are engage, empower, encourage, embrace, and evaluate.
Engagement is about finding quality opportunities to involve your mentee that either support things/ideas they have expressed to you or push them to try something different.
Empower is providing the needed support that gives your mentee the confidence to do something (in the right direction of course). There must be a sense of building of the mentee’s moral, value, and awareness that comes with true empowerment.
Encourage is being a cheerleader. You want to make sure that will you are addressing areas of concern, you are making sure to give praise and celebrate. A cheerleader supports the team through thick and thin…so should a mentor.
Embrace your mentee for all that he or she is or isn’t. That is really why you are their mentor, to help bring out the good and work on fixing rough spots. A mentee wants to have some non-judgmental space with a mentor. It builds trust, security, and respect.
Evaluate your mentee and let them do the same for you. A relationship is about give and take, however, in a mentor-mentee relationship it’s more about fulfillment and growth – for both of you. So listen to Stephen Covey and “start with the end in mind”. There needs to be an understanding of what the relationship is and the outcomes from the mentor-mentee union. You have to know what's broke to fix it.
Mentoring comes in all shapes and sizes. There is no perfect way to mentor other than to simple care, do no harm, and seek advice from others.
Let us know your mentoring thoughts!
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