Improving Your Mentoring Skills: Active Listening

You can find a million different resources on what makes a good mentor. A good mentor builds trust, is open and willing to share their knowledge, is positive and interested in their mentee’s growth, provides constructive feedback, and so on. However, many of these resources will tell you what mentoring skills you need to have, but not really how to obtain them.

Mentoring, like every other skill, is learned and taught; it has to be practiced and guided if it is to be effective. Paradoxically, one might need a mentor to learn how to mentor correctly, to begin with. We can and will be that mentor for you. And just like any skill you’ve just learned, there will be a bevy of information that you may have to take in for even relatively simple tasks. In that same vein, for today, let’s focus on one of the core skills yet often hardest to master: Active Listening.

What Is Active Listening?

You’ve probably heard this one before. Active Listening is a mentoring skill that involves being truly involved in the conversation that you’re having with your mentee. Think to yourself: have you ever had a conversation where you hear the person talking, but you’re almost entirely focused on what you’re going to say next? Don’t worry. This is how everyone handles their conversation, and it is why Active Listening is such a rare skill to have. When you talk to someone who is truly a good listener, you notice it almost immediately. By building your listening skills, your mentoring will improve dramatically, as well as your relationships, both professional and personal.

How Can You Practice Active Listening?

Rome wasn’t built in a day. Similarly, a good listener is something that takes effort to become. Fortunately, active listening is can be practiced every day in many situations. Of course, not every situation; nobody wants a deep philosophical debate when they were just making elevator small talk. That being said, here are things you can practice in the conversations you have; do these things regularly, and your listening and mentoring skills will be improved. And depending on who you practice these things on, they may notice the improvement immediately!

Maintain eye contact.

You will hear this one tip from a million different sources. And they are absolutely correct. Eye contact is a subtle but massive expression that is immediately recognizable if done out of the ordinary. You may hear stories of people thinking someone has become profoundly more thoughtful simply because they decided to maintain eye contact with someone who usually keeps their attention elsewhere. It works for your conversation partner and you as well; without being distracted by whatever is going on around you, it’ll be far easier to be present in the discussion.

Try to create a mental image of what you are hearing.

A good tip for digesting whatever you hear is to create a mental image of what you are listening to. This allows you to, once again, stay focused in the conversation, and it actually makes an organic response to whatever is being said much easier than trying to pre-plan it actively. It also makes remembering the conversation much easier for later on, but more on that later.

Make sure they know you’re listening.

Paying attention doesn’t mean that you are a silent watcher. Make sure that the person you speak to is also aware that you are intently listening. Doing things like nodding your head, using short affirmatives, and asking questions about what they are talking about are all great ways to let them know that you hear what they are saying. If you need them to elaborate on something, a good trick is to repeat the last few words they said and then asked them a question based on that topic. It works nearly every time. After all, most people just love talking.

Refrain from imposing.

As a mentor, it is your job to give advice and guidance. But it’s also important to know when to give it. When someone is talking about their troubles to you, avoid telling them what to do unless they specifically ask for it. When people talk about their problems, at that moment, they really just want to vent. So take what they are saying at that moment, and when you are looking to give advice, think about it and give it to them afterward when things have cooled a bit.

Remember what they were saying.

Now, this isn’t to be used in all cases. As said before, you don’t need to memorize elevator small talk. But one of the best ways to gain the trust of someone is to not only pay attention to what they are saying at the moment but also hold onto it and bring it on later. Whenever you’re talking with someone beyond what is small talk, try to remember the major points of the conversation. Then, bring it up later, and the person you’re talking to will appreciate it immediately.

Active Listening is one of the core mentoring skills, but also one of the core social skills. A good listener is everyone’s favourite person to talk to since they really are a rarity. Now, not every conversation needs active listening, some people are just trying to pass the time, and that’s perfectly fine. But when it comes to mentoring, active listening is paramount to building trust with your mentee and gaining insight into their potential. By practising what you’ve learned here, you’ll be well on your way to becoming the best listener a mentor can be!