“For every personal and professional development to succeed, mentorship is indispensable. A mentor can guide and inspire a mentee to achieve their goals, reach their full potential and help others too. Successful mentorship is like a panacea to every developmental challenge; be it in marriage, career, education and so on – it saves you many years of try and error. To make this work in your favour, there are 10 common mistakes mentors and mentees make that affect the success of their mentorship.”
David Ogidinta, 2023.
Lack of Self Awareness
One mistake you can make during mentorship is go into the guidance of another without knowing who you are, what you want and how far you are willing to go. I can say that mentorship is more about self-awareness and self-discovery than mere professional development.
Being self-aware helps both mentors and mentees a great deal. It allows both to recognize their strengths and weaknesses, pointing out areas that need improvement. Don’t forget that everyone has biases, but being self-aware will enable you to appreciate different perspectives, boost your listening and communication abilities, and solve identified problems specifically. I recommend repeated personal SWOT analysis; it helps you engage better.
2. No smart Goals
It is important to develop clear ideas of what you want to achieve from your mentoring relationship. Once you decide on an objective, set specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound goals. Nothing gives you speed and satisfaction like achieving your SMART goals. The success of your mentorship relationship will be impeded without clear goals from both sides because it allows the mentor to understand and gain insights into how they can help the mentee achieve their goals while allowing the mentee to understand what they need to fulfill their set goals.
“If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time”.
3. Unwilling to learn
Mentors have a lot to learn from their mentees; if this relationship is to be successful, it is a partnership, and the king here is the outcome, not individuals. A mentee who is eager to learn is more likely to succeed! The mentor helps you grow your skills, make better decisions, and gain new perspectives on your life and career. Rather than waste your precious time on trials and errors, a mentor points out a clear path to success. Additionally, mentors cannot succeed if they fail to understand the real needs of their mentees; they bring helpful insights to solving their problems. But when the mentor ignores these needs and insists on the old ways, success is not achieved. At least not as fast as when both are committed learners.
“Mentorship is a learning experience that goes both ways. You must be open to new ideas and willing to learn from each other.”.
4. Not communicating Effectively
There are many channels of communication during a mentoring session; this could be verbal and not verbal. Understanding the type, purpose, and effective use, will remove ambiguity and open a seamless feedback channel.
If you must succeed, avoid misunderstanding and misinterpretation by keeping your message simple and clear, given at the right time and place, and through the most effective channel. Mentees should communicate openly and honestly with their mentors. Be clear about goals and expectations, as well as any challenges or obstacles been faced.
“Mentorship with effective communication strategies helps participants give and receive information without misunderstanding and confusion.”.
5. Feedbacks
Feedback is an important aspect of every mentorship experience. It provides an opportunity for review of how effective the mentor or mentee have been in the course of their work. A successful mentee is one that is receptive to constructive criticism and feedback.
This is necessary to improve their skills and make the needed changes. Openness to feedback can help increase work performance and give you valuable new skills to develop your career or passion. Appropriate feedback will require you to outline your observations and thought about your mentor/mentee, with helpful insights on how to improve these skills. Why a check-up visit is important after a patient is discharged from the hospital is for the doctor to know if the treatment method was effective, and if the patient followed through the recommended guidelines. The principle is same in mentorship.
“Feedback is important to determine if you are on track accomplishing your set goals, your mentorship style, and skills that need improvement”.
6. Accountability
One challenge mentors face is knowing how best to guide their mentees towards the goals they have set. A successful mentee takes responsibility for his/her own actions and outcome. You must be willing to be held accountable for the progress. You must be proactive in seeking feedback and taking actions to improve yourself.
To create a sustainable culture of accountability, you must carry your mentee along on how they would like to be held accountable and willing to follow their progress and give honest feedback. Accountability is one of the reasons we need mentors in the first place.
“Taking responsibility and holding someone responsible for their goals, actions, decision, behaviour, or performance can make your mentorship succeed or fail.”.
7. Not taking Initiatives
A mentee who takes initiative is more likely to succeed and become independent. Take the lead in your mentoring relationship. Be honest and willing to share the challenges you face so your mentor can provide effective guidance.
An example here is the relationship between a research student and the professor supervising your course project. Going forward, know you can do more.
“Learn problem-solving skills and efficiency, instead of waiting for your mentor/mentee to find the solution for you”.
8. Lack of positive attitude
Your attitude will determine your altitude in mentorship.
I recommend you take steps to train your brain to think positively. Identify what frightens you most and reach out for help. Focus on the good things but be aware that the bad also happens. Show more gratitude for what you have and can control. Disconnect from negative people and environments. Use positive affirmations daily. Open yourself up to humor.
A mentor or mentee with the right positive attitude is more likely to succeed. Don’t forget that you determine your outcome to a large extent by the kind of attitude you portray. No one succeeds where they believe they deserve to fail. A positive outlook often helps things run smoothly and results in a more enjoyable experience.
Your attitude is so powerful that it affects everything and everyone around you, so lead yourself first and share positivity.
9. Mutual respect
Mutual respect holds the life of your work together. Your learning experience and ability to solve identified problem is also dependent on it.
A mentoring relationship that promotes mutual respect is more likely to succeed because they won’t want to let each other down. Their work continuously nurtures trust and builds rapport as the relationship grows.
Effectively working on the other 9 common mistakes will show your partner that you respect and value them. Once people begin to feel taken for granted, with your time management, ineffectiveness with communication and feedback, lack of initiative and unwillingness to learn, just know that your relationship has failed. You must see yourself as part of the team and be willing to acknowledge your share in its success or failure.
10. Not taking referrals seriously
Remember you cannot give what you don’t have, the buck does not stop with you.
One critical mistake some mentors make is take on certain areas their mentees need support without having the right skills or training themselves. Mentees also fail sometimes to follow through with their secondary and tertiary mentors.
Mentors must find ways for their mentees to see other leadership models and approaches, especially in areas they have less competence. This can start with reviewing your goals, which you find challenging, and you work out a plan. Here, feedback is equally critical, you must commit to following up on the progress your mentee is making and help maximize the new connections.
“For mentorship to be complete, referral must be effective.”
NEVER WALK ALONE, UNLEASH YOUR PASSION.
A manual for legacy leadership.
