Mentoring: Rules of Engagement

1. Commit to regular meet-ups.

Setting aside time each month, or however often you choose to meet, is essential to continue building the relationship and to promote growth. If you don’t commit to set times you will most probably get too busy and pass over the meeting for other things.

2. Provide feedback

While it’s all well and good to have the half hour conversation, the learning doesn’t stop there. Both the mentor and the mentee need to provide feedback about the conversation; what worked well? What could’ve been done better? Was the session long enough? Only by asking, and answering, these questions will you both be able to learn as much as possible from each other.

3. Be respectful of each other’s time

You are both busy people with careers and a home life to take care of. While the set time should focus solely on mentoring, as a mentee you should be encouraged to ask further questions or for guidance when needed, but realise that your mentor can’t be replying to emails or answering your calls all day, every day. If you do have questions, try to ask them all at one time, or give your mentor time to answer them. If they’re not urgent, ask yourself if the questions can wait until the next session?

4. Set boundaries

While you may feel comfortable asking your mentor questions relating to outside of your work life, the suitability of the questions must be gauged. Remember why you have a mentor and what you hoped to achieve through the relationship before bringing your personal life into the conversation. There is probably someone in your life better suited to answering those kinds of questions.

While each mentoring relationship will be different you need to think about what you both can get out of it and how you can achieve that.

To read more about mentoring see our mentoring programs