How To Be A Great Mentor

It was 1997, I was just finishing undergraduate school and I was ready to take on the world. I was quite frankly “feeling myself” because I was being recruited by several major corporations and had just acquired a degree in one of the most sought-after fields. I felt like the world was my oyster, and it was. What I didn’t know was the professional world would turn out to be quite different than the classroom I’d conquered. 

Lucky for me, one of my very first assignments allowed me to run into Sharon Boone, my first professional mentor. I’m not sure if I reminded her of herself at my age or if there was something else that caused her to decide to pour into me, but she did, and I will forever be grateful that she chose me as one of her mentees. 

Sharon taught me lessons that I never would have learned in a classroom. She taught me things that would have taken years to learn on the job; she was a sounding board when I needed it, she cheered me on when I succeeded, and when needed, she told me the things I didn’t want to hear. Sharon is the ultimate example of being a great mentor. A great mentor is a teacher, a confidante, a cheerleader and someone to hold you accountable when need be.

A mentor is a teacher in many ways. Great mentors pass on information that a mentee may not find anywhere else. They help you understand unwritten rules and to navigate the waters of whatever organization you occupy. 

To be a great mentor, you must be willing to share what you have learned and how you learned it. You must be a cheat code for your mentees; sharing your lessons learned and allowing them to learn from your mistakes so they don’t repeat them. Great mentors don’t shy away from their mistakes; they talk about them in full transparency and show their mentees how to overcome the same challenges they have encountered and even some they have not. 

Great mentors must be great at listening. Mentors are experts in some way, shape or form and their mentees are aspiring experts. The journey can sometimes be a little frustrating; any growth journey will have challenging moments. Sometimes all that is needed to get over the challenge or the emotion in the moment is a listening ear.

To be a great mentor, you must be willing to listen and really explore with your mentee what they are going through while holding conversations in the strictest of confidence. The listening doesn’t require agreement or a solution to a problem, it simply requires your engagement and intentional focus on the mentee in that moment. Great mentors remember what it was like for them in those moments and what it can still sometimes feel like and therefore provide a listening ear and safe space when it is needed.

Great mentors must be great cheerleaders. Mentees want to know that they are doing a good job and moving in the right direction. It is therefore the job of a mentor to help them understand when they are doing well on the journey by cheering them on. A mentee may not always hear “great job” from other people, so they need to hear it from their mentor. 

To be a great mentor, you must be a cheerleader. You must praise your mentees for a job well done, support them, show up to the things that are important to them and make it known that they are doing a good job when you see them trying. As a mentor, you can celebrate the small successes with them on the way to the big success that everyone will see.

Great mentors hold mentees accountable. Not always in the disciplinarian sort of way, but in the supportive “you can do this” kind of way. To be a great mentor, you must be willing to hold your mentee accountable. Accountability looks like following up to find out if they registered for the certification course, if they raised their hand for the stretch project, if they took the day off to tend to their own mental health or calling them out when they are falling back into old habits. 

Accountability is about helping them make plans, helping them challenge themselves and then making sure they stick to the plan or step up to the challenge. Great mentors hold us accountable and let us know when we are failing to stay true to ourselves and our goals.

Being a great mentor is a great responsibility but is extremely rewarding. Now, 24 years later as I attempt to mentor up-and-coming professionals, I may not know why Sharon chose me specifically, but I know why she chose to be a mentor. Being a mentor is one of the most rewarding things you will do along your professional journey. 

You don’t have to know it all, you don’t have to have a fancy title and you don’t have to have experience mentoring. You just have to have a willingness to pour into someone else and be willing to be a teacher, a confidante, a cheerleader and a place of accountability. By stepping up and becoming a mentor, you can have a lasting impact on someone’s career.