Top 4 Essential Mentoring Skills for Effective Mentors

Mentoring can be rewarding for both mentor and mentee. But a mentor must know that mentoring is not just answering the mentee’s questions or giving advice; it is much more than that. To become a mentor, you need specific mentoring skills and practice.

A mentor’s responsibility is to guide a mentee, be there for them, and help them grow, both professionally and personally. And if you, as a mentor, want to make the relationship effective and help your mentee accomplish their objectives, follow these top 4 mentoring skills for mentors:

1. Giving Encouragement

Being able to encourage the mentee is one of the most valued mentoring skills for mentors. Who doesn’t love a mentor who gives the mentee positive feedback and the mental strength to achieve their goals? 

When a mentee enters into a mentoring relationship, a lot is going on in their mind. Should I tell my weakness to my mentor? Will my mentor be understanding? What if I fail to prove myself in front of my mentor?

Positive feedback works magic for the mentee. Mentors and mentees in Fortune 500 companies admitted that they enjoy being praised for their accomplishments.

While there are many ways to encourage your mentee, below are a few ways that you can follow:

• Compliment your mentee for their achievement. The achievement can be small or big, but recognizing it makes them feel a lot happier and more confident.

• Point out their strengths or any positive quality that they have. You can even mention the smallest improvements in a particular area.

• Appreciate them in front of other people; people that are involved in the mentees’ professional life.

Make sure your appreciation and encouragement are sincere and not overdone. Too much of anything is not good.

Also Read: Top 5 Mentoring Challenges and Their Solutions

2. Observation is a Great Mentoring Skill for Mentors

Observation skill is a critical mentoring skill for mentors. A mentor is someone who can see what a mentee cannot see in themselves and pushes the mentee beyond their limits; this comes from observation. By observing your mentee, you understand what they are currently doing and what they are capable of doing.

Observe how your mentee reacts to a problem or handles a problem. Do they see challenges as something that needs to be dealt with courage? Do they become nervous and underperform when they are under pressure? Or they respond thoughtfully rather than impulsively? Note down everything that you notice.

This observation helps you understand their strengths as well as areas that need to be improved. You can then build up a picture of how you are going to help your mentee in their professional development.

3. Active Listening

Active listening is one mentoring skill that everyone talks about. It is THE most important skill that a mentor must possess. Active listening is a technique in which the listener has their complete attention to the person who is talking, in order to understand their problem and respond correctly.

There are a few qualities that an active listener has, such as:

• They do not think about what to say next when the other person is talking. Instead, they listen to them carefully and then respond.

• Active listeners are never happy with a “yes” or “no” as an answer. Instead, they ask open-ended questions so that the other person has to talk more. For example, “What does success look like to you?” or “What are your responsibilities in your current organization?”

• They not only ask questions or pay attention to what the other person is saying, but also make them think by asking questions like, “How do you think you can accomplish this goal?”

If you want to be an effective mentor and make a difference in your mentoring relationship, you must be an active listener. Certainly, active listening is a skill that needs to be developed, just like any other skill. There are several online mentor training courses that you can join to improve your active listening skills. Not only that, the training courses will help you develop overall mentoring skills for mentors.

Also Read: Mentoring for Leadership: Improve Your Leadership Skills Through Mentoring

4. Risk Management is a Unique Mentoring Skill for Mentors

Another unique mentoring skill of a mentor is their ability to protect the mentee from making unnecessary mistakes as they start taking risks. As a mentor, you surely push your mentee to a great extent and put them into challenges, but helping them recognize the risks that are involved in an action is also your responsibility.

Here are some examples of business and career risks that a mentee can face:

Business Risks:

• Dealing incorrectly with a customer
• Compromising on quality
• Missing deadlines

Career Risks:

There are few risks that a mentee can recognize, and there are few that only a mentor can, as they are a more experienced person. A mentor must offer help to the mentee to identify those risks and suggest how to deal with them.

Also Read: Mentoring Expectations from a Mentor