Seven Habits of Highly Effective Mentors
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Building Mentor Relationships
A SLI document, adapted from the Community Tool Box of the University of Kansas.
Congratulations! You've chosen to take on one of the most difficult, often frustrating, and ultimately rewarding responsibilities in the world: Acting as a mentor to an adolescent. To meet the challenges of this new relationship, you'll need an abundance of patience, creativity, and good humor. You'll also need top-notch communication, problem solving, and goal setting skills.
These next sections are for you, the college mentor. In addition to outlining communication, problem solving, and goal setting techniques, they'll give you the tools you'll need to build and nurture this very important relationship.
Why is your relationship with your mentee important?
Few components of a mentorship program are as vital to its success as strong personal relationships. But like any other relationship, a successful relationship between you and your mentee won't just happen. It will take skill and hard work, on both your parts, to make your relationship grow.
Keep in mind that the foundations of your mentoring relationship are laid the minute you meet your mentee. The relationship will grow and change for the duration of your involvement with SLI, and it will mean a lot for your mentee if she/he sees that you are willing to go the extra mile to be there for them. So it's worth some effort on your part to make sure things go as smoothly as they can!
How do you build a mentoring relationship with youths?
There are a number of factors that go into building a strong mentoring relationship. In this section we will discuss a number of attitudes, skills, and activities, as well as how to build them into your mentor/mentee relationship.
The importance of modeling behaviors
Remember, as a mentor, you'll be a role model for your mentee. Your mentee will internalize and copy your actions, so it's important that you take your own actions seriously. Positive behaviors you can model include:
Cultural sensitivity
Your mentee may have a different racial or socioeconomic background than yours. It's very important, though, that you be conscious of any preconceived notions you have about your mentee based on these things, and avoid letting any prejudices you have color your relationship. Your mentee is an individual, with individual strengths and individual faults. Don't let preconceived ideas about your mentee's race/culture/class act as a barrier to your relationship!
At the same time, you will want to be aware of cultural differences that may have an impact on your relationship. For example, if your mentee practiced Islam, it would be inappropriate for you to invite her or him to a pig roast—her or his religion forbids him to eat pork. Some examples of potential differences that may arise between SLI mentors and mentees are differences in: religious practices, documentation status, family structure, language spoken at home, and Socio-Economic Status of the mentee’s family. Your awareness of and respect for your mentee's cultural traditions, and her/his sense of self, will go far toward strengthening the bond between you.
And remember: Your relationship with your mentee is not a "one-way street." By labeling the youth--in any way--you run the risk of overlooking everything she or he has to offer the relationship.
Building trust
Respecting your mentee's cultural beliefs is only one of many steps you can take toward gaining her or his trust. Depending on her or his background, your mentee may never have experienced a close, trusting relationship with a college student. She or he may be wary at first, and may have trouble believing you'll be there when she or he needs you. Even if your mentee has had an idyllic background, she or he is unlikely to trust you automatically--you'll need to earn her or his trust. Here are some tips that will help you:
Communication skills
As a mentor, the most important thing you'll contribute to your mentee, besides helping the mentee reach her or his, is a trusting relationship. And communication is the key. But believe it or not, no one is a born communicator. Good communication takes time and practice!
Here are some of the keys to good communication:
Active listening: Probably the most important of these. Active listening means listening with your head, not just your ears. It's the ability to focus on and feel what you're being told.
Assertiveness: This means expressing your feelings effectively and appropriately, and setting boundaries where necessary. Some people are uncomfortable being assertive, bur rest assured, it's a skill you can learn like any other!
Empathy: This is simply understanding how the other person feels without being judgmental. Don't confuse empathy with sympathy, which means feeling sorry for or feeling pity for someone who's in a worse situation than you are.
Open-mindedness: It's important to be as non-judgmental as possible and accept that your mentee has a right to hold her or his own beliefs (personal, political, religious, or any other) even if you disagree.
Self-awareness: Recognize and accept your own limitations. It's important to identify your feelings and their source, and accept responsibility for your feelings and actions.
Support: In a mentor relationship, it's important to offer moral support, acceptance, and encouragement despite personal disapproval over the decisions your mentee has made.
Trust: This involves demonstrating your feelings and views to another and being open to her or his reactions. This means taking risks, making yourself vulnerable, and accepting the fact that sometimes your trust may be abused. Scary, isn't it! The pay-off, however is better communication for everybody.
Active Listening
Let's take a minute to discuss active listening, which is, as mentioned above, the key to effective communication.
Whenever two people communicate, there are three components to whatever communication occurs: the "sender," the "receiver," and the message. So, for example, if you tell your mentee "I'll meet you at the library at four o'clock," you're the sender, your mentee is the receiver, and the message is "see you at the library at four." But what if your mentee isn't paying attention? She may show up at the wrong time, or the wrong place, or not at all. Even if the two of you were in the same room when you made arrangements to meet, the message was not received.
It's important that you become a good "receiver" for the messages your mentee is trying to send! This includes paying attention to the feelings and emotions behind what your mentee is saying. If you routinely "tune out" your mentee, trust will be eroded and you may not meet your mentee's needs.
This is where active listening comes in. An active or attentive listener:
The process of active listening also includes response, body language, and empathy. Let's discuss these in detail:
1. Responding: In order to demonstrate interest and gain understanding, it's important for a listener to respond to a speaker verbally and non-verbally. Some verbal response techniques include:
2. Body language: Another component of active listening and effective responding is non-verbal; the posture you have during a conversation clues the speaker in to how interested you are in the conversation. Remember to:
3. Empathy: As we mentioned earlier in the section, empathy means understanding how the other person feels without being judgmental. Empathy is often confused with sympathy, which means feeling sorry for or feeling pity for someone who's in a worse situation than you are. Your mentee doesn't want to be pitied, but she or he does want to feel like you understand.
To show empathy, you should:
The rationale of good listening is to encourage communication and understanding, and to pave the way for future sharing. Yet some common reactions or styles of relating can leave your mentee feeling uncomfortable, which shuts down communication. Some common pitfalls include the following:
Problem solving
The process of helping your mentee explore and understand her or his concerns and their solutions is called problem solving. The listener does not make suggestions or give advice to the speaker; rather, the listener helps the speaker understand the root cause of the problem and construct alternative solutions.
The steps to effective problem solving are as follows:
What do you do when things don't work out?
The fact is, despite everyone's best efforts, not all relationships work out. You and your mentee may experience insurmountable cultural differences, communication problems, or a lack of common interests, or you may simply not get along. You may also find that your mentee has problems that cannot be addressed in the context of a mentoring program.
We encourage you to do your best to work things out between you and your mentee, if possible. Your mentee will see that there is at least one college student who is willing to "go the distance" for her or him, and may at the same time learn valuable lessons about determination and persistence. But you should also be aware of your own limitations. If the strained relationship between you and your mentee has become a barrier to your mentee reaching her or his goals, or if your mentee has serious problems that are beyond your ability to help, it's time to end the relationship. Be sure to notify program staff so your mentee may be reassigned to a new mentor. Also, if you suspect your mentee is experiencing an abusive home environment, a substance abuse problem, or a mental illness, notify program staff as soon as possible, so your mentee can be referred to the appropriate agency for help.
In Summary
Building your relationship with your mentee is a difficult but extremely rewarding enterprise. Progress may be slow, and you and your mentee may get frustrated. Hang in there! With some time, patience, and work you will make a real difference in your mentee's life. And don't forget to celebrate your successes!
Mentoring Checklist
___You know why your relationship with your mentee is important
___You know how to build a mentoring relationship with youths
___You are consistent and reliable
___You do not use profanity
___You keep your word
___You are friendly and polite
___You are helpful and respectful
___You know the steps for building trust
___You know the keys to good communication
___You know what active listening is
___You understand the steps to problem solving
___You know what to do when things don't work out
Congratulations! You've chosen to take on one of the most difficult, often frustrating, and ultimately rewarding responsibilities in the world: Acting as a mentor to an adolescent. To meet the challenges of this new relationship, you'll need an abundance of patience, creativity, and good humor. You'll also need top-notch communication, problem solving, and goal setting skills.
These next sections are for you, the college mentor. In addition to outlining communication, problem solving, and goal setting techniques, they'll give you the tools you'll need to build and nurture this very important relationship.
Why is your relationship with your mentee important?
Few components of a mentorship program are as vital to its success as strong personal relationships. But like any other relationship, a successful relationship between you and your mentee won't just happen. It will take skill and hard work, on both your parts, to make your relationship grow.
Keep in mind that the foundations of your mentoring relationship are laid the minute you meet your mentee. The relationship will grow and change for the duration of your involvement with SLI, and it will mean a lot for your mentee if she/he sees that you are willing to go the extra mile to be there for them. So it's worth some effort on your part to make sure things go as smoothly as they can!
How do you build a mentoring relationship with youths?
There are a number of factors that go into building a strong mentoring relationship. In this section we will discuss a number of attitudes, skills, and activities, as well as how to build them into your mentor/mentee relationship.
The importance of modeling behaviors
Remember, as a mentor, you'll be a role model for your mentee. Your mentee will internalize and copy your actions, so it's important that you take your own actions seriously. Positive behaviors you can model include:
- Being consistent and reliable in your behavior
- Not using profanity
- Always keeping your word: Doing what you say you're going to do in a timely fashion
- Being friendly and approachable
- Being helpful
- Being respectful
- Allow yourself to evaluate when a more professional standard is needed, and when it is okay to feel more casual
Cultural sensitivity
Your mentee may have a different racial or socioeconomic background than yours. It's very important, though, that you be conscious of any preconceived notions you have about your mentee based on these things, and avoid letting any prejudices you have color your relationship. Your mentee is an individual, with individual strengths and individual faults. Don't let preconceived ideas about your mentee's race/culture/class act as a barrier to your relationship!
At the same time, you will want to be aware of cultural differences that may have an impact on your relationship. For example, if your mentee practiced Islam, it would be inappropriate for you to invite her or him to a pig roast—her or his religion forbids him to eat pork. Some examples of potential differences that may arise between SLI mentors and mentees are differences in: religious practices, documentation status, family structure, language spoken at home, and Socio-Economic Status of the mentee’s family. Your awareness of and respect for your mentee's cultural traditions, and her/his sense of self, will go far toward strengthening the bond between you.
And remember: Your relationship with your mentee is not a "one-way street." By labeling the youth--in any way--you run the risk of overlooking everything she or he has to offer the relationship.
Building trust
Respecting your mentee's cultural beliefs is only one of many steps you can take toward gaining her or his trust. Depending on her or his background, your mentee may never have experienced a close, trusting relationship with a college student. She or he may be wary at first, and may have trouble believing you'll be there when she or he needs you. Even if your mentee has had an idyllic background, she or he is unlikely to trust you automatically--you'll need to earn her or his trust. Here are some tips that will help you:
- First and foremost, give your mentee time to trust you. Trust doesn't happen overnight, it builds over time. It's something you have to earn.
- Respect the privacy of your mentee. Keep conversations with your mentee confidential, except when you have reason to believe your mentee is going to hurt herself/himself or someone else.
- Be sensitive to your mentee's daily concerns. Her/his daily life may include issues that require more energy than the mentoring relationship.
- Be patient and help your mentee through the storm and stress of adolescence!
- Be consistent. Reliability fosters respect and gives your mentee a safe environment in which to let down her or his guard.
- Show and tell your mentee that she or he is important to you.
- Encourage and praise your mentee. She or he can never have too much positive reinforcement!
- Don't be afraid to express your opinion. Feedback, both positive and constructively critical, helps give your mentee direction and motivation to continue reaching for her/his goals.
- Respect your mentee's right to make her or his own choices, even when you disagree with those choices. (However, do encourage positive actions.)
- Be sensitive to your mentee's feelings. Think before you speak, and take responsibility for your own feelings and actions before you project them onto others.
- Take responsibility for contacting the mentee to set up meetings. Follow up when she or he doesn't call you. Schedule meetings in advance and then confirm them a day ahead of time. Be on time.
- Keep promises. Make every effort to show up for meetings. If you absolutely cannot make a meeting, cancel at least a day in advance and then reschedule as soon as possible.
- Measure progress in small steps and by how much your mentee has accomplished, not by how much you have left to do.
Communication skills
As a mentor, the most important thing you'll contribute to your mentee, besides helping the mentee reach her or his, is a trusting relationship. And communication is the key. But believe it or not, no one is a born communicator. Good communication takes time and practice!
Here are some of the keys to good communication:
Active listening: Probably the most important of these. Active listening means listening with your head, not just your ears. It's the ability to focus on and feel what you're being told.
Assertiveness: This means expressing your feelings effectively and appropriately, and setting boundaries where necessary. Some people are uncomfortable being assertive, bur rest assured, it's a skill you can learn like any other!
Empathy: This is simply understanding how the other person feels without being judgmental. Don't confuse empathy with sympathy, which means feeling sorry for or feeling pity for someone who's in a worse situation than you are.
Open-mindedness: It's important to be as non-judgmental as possible and accept that your mentee has a right to hold her or his own beliefs (personal, political, religious, or any other) even if you disagree.
Self-awareness: Recognize and accept your own limitations. It's important to identify your feelings and their source, and accept responsibility for your feelings and actions.
Support: In a mentor relationship, it's important to offer moral support, acceptance, and encouragement despite personal disapproval over the decisions your mentee has made.
Trust: This involves demonstrating your feelings and views to another and being open to her or his reactions. This means taking risks, making yourself vulnerable, and accepting the fact that sometimes your trust may be abused. Scary, isn't it! The pay-off, however is better communication for everybody.
Active Listening
Let's take a minute to discuss active listening, which is, as mentioned above, the key to effective communication.
Whenever two people communicate, there are three components to whatever communication occurs: the "sender," the "receiver," and the message. So, for example, if you tell your mentee "I'll meet you at the library at four o'clock," you're the sender, your mentee is the receiver, and the message is "see you at the library at four." But what if your mentee isn't paying attention? She may show up at the wrong time, or the wrong place, or not at all. Even if the two of you were in the same room when you made arrangements to meet, the message was not received.
It's important that you become a good "receiver" for the messages your mentee is trying to send! This includes paying attention to the feelings and emotions behind what your mentee is saying. If you routinely "tune out" your mentee, trust will be eroded and you may not meet your mentee's needs.
This is where active listening comes in. An active or attentive listener:
- Hears what the person says
- Identifies and labels the feelings a speaker experiences
- Listens for undercurrent feelings not explicitly expressed by the speaker. Undercurrent feelings give you excellent insight into what's really going on inside your mentee and into attitudes and behavior that may have lasted a lifetime
- Recognizes personal values and personal history revealed in conversation. This can include the kind of family a person grew up in, what's important to the person, what the person's view of the world is, how this person treats other people, how this person treats him or herself.
The process of active listening also includes response, body language, and empathy. Let's discuss these in detail:
1. Responding: In order to demonstrate interest and gain understanding, it's important for a listener to respond to a speaker verbally and non-verbally. Some verbal response techniques include:
- Paraphrases: Restatements of the speaker's feeling or meaning in your own words. Paraphrases help you guard against miscommunication and allow the speaker to clarify her or his own feelings.
"So the security guard accused you of stealing the shirt, and called you a liar when you said it was paid for." - Feeling reflections: Statements that focus on the emotions or feelings you observe in the speaker. Feeling reflections show the speaker that you are listening and validating her or his emotions.
"You were angry when the guard accused you of stealing the shirt." - Clarifications: Questions or comments you make to elicit more information from the speaker and to double-check your and the speaker's understanding of the problem.
"And you say this happened yesterday." - Neutral statements: Brief verbal responses that show the speaker that you are following the conversation.
"I see. Go on." - Summaries: Organizing statements that capture the speaker's emotions and concerns concisely. A summary helps integrate the information you've heard, leads to new directions in conversation, and helps wrap up a listening session.
"If I understand you, you feel this situation is unfair and your first reaction was to get angry."
2. Body language: Another component of active listening and effective responding is non-verbal; the posture you have during a conversation clues the speaker in to how interested you are in the conversation. Remember to:
- Look the person in the eye -- Good eye contact shows you that are paying attention and take the conversation seriously. Watching the speaker also lets you read the speaker's body language, which may say a lot about how she feels.
- Use natural posture -- Sit up in your chair with your legs crossed or together or stand up with your feet about a shoulder's width apart in a relaxed stance. If you slouch, rest your head on your hands, shift positions a lot, or cross your arms on your chest, you might unintentionally signal boredom, fatigue or restlessness.
- Sit in a helping position -- If you sit across from a person with a table in between, you may put yourself in an "oppositional" stance. Sit at an angle and lean slightly towards (but don't crowd out!) your mentee.
3. Empathy: As we mentioned earlier in the section, empathy means understanding how the other person feels without being judgmental. Empathy is often confused with sympathy, which means feeling sorry for or feeling pity for someone who's in a worse situation than you are. Your mentee doesn't want to be pitied, but she or he does want to feel like you understand.
To show empathy, you should:
- Concentrate on what your mentee says
- Listen for the underlying feelings and values in the speaker's tone of voice, facial expressions, body language and in the content of what's being said
- Reflect your mentee's feelings and values back to him
- Summarize important issues and feelings you've heard
The rationale of good listening is to encourage communication and understanding, and to pave the way for future sharing. Yet some common reactions or styles of relating can leave your mentee feeling uncomfortable, which shuts down communication. Some common pitfalls include the following:
- Interrupting a person while she’s/he's talking
- Arguing or constantly opposing the other person's point of view
- Blaming your feelings on someone else
- Passing judgment on a person's actions
- Demanding that someone do something or behave in a certain way
- Not recognizing a person's right to her or his own opinions
- Giving advice instead of working together to find alternatives
- Jumping to conclusions
- Pressuring someone to disclose information about themselves before they're ready
- Abusing confidentiality
Problem solving
The process of helping your mentee explore and understand her or his concerns and their solutions is called problem solving. The listener does not make suggestions or give advice to the speaker; rather, the listener helps the speaker understand the root cause of the problem and construct alternative solutions.
The steps to effective problem solving are as follows:
- Exploring the problem: Your mentee describes the problem as she or he understands it
- Understanding the problem: Using open-ended questions, you uncover important facts, feeling sources, personal limitations and preferences. Understanding the problem also helps your mentee to understand her or his emotions
- Defining the problem: You and your mentee restate the problem, locating its root causes. In this step, you can use open-ended questions and summaries to help your mentee clarify the problem
- Brainstorming alternatives: You and your mentee think of any and all options, no matter how far-fetched or impractical they seem, to dealing with the root of the problem
- Evaluating options: You and your mentee discuss the benefits and risks of each alternative, narrowing options down to the most agreeable or most plausible solutions
- Choosing the best option: Your mentee can now choose the best alternatives for the given situation, based on the solution's advantages and disadvantages and her or his personal values, abilities and limitations. It's important that you respect and support the decision she or he reaches, even if you don't entirely agree with it
- Taking action: This step entails the youth and mentor making observable efforts to bring about the solution best tailored to the speaker's needs. It would be easy to ignore this last step, but then the problem solving process wouldn't be the problem solving process!
What do you do when things don't work out?
The fact is, despite everyone's best efforts, not all relationships work out. You and your mentee may experience insurmountable cultural differences, communication problems, or a lack of common interests, or you may simply not get along. You may also find that your mentee has problems that cannot be addressed in the context of a mentoring program.
We encourage you to do your best to work things out between you and your mentee, if possible. Your mentee will see that there is at least one college student who is willing to "go the distance" for her or him, and may at the same time learn valuable lessons about determination and persistence. But you should also be aware of your own limitations. If the strained relationship between you and your mentee has become a barrier to your mentee reaching her or his goals, or if your mentee has serious problems that are beyond your ability to help, it's time to end the relationship. Be sure to notify program staff so your mentee may be reassigned to a new mentor. Also, if you suspect your mentee is experiencing an abusive home environment, a substance abuse problem, or a mental illness, notify program staff as soon as possible, so your mentee can be referred to the appropriate agency for help.
In Summary
Building your relationship with your mentee is a difficult but extremely rewarding enterprise. Progress may be slow, and you and your mentee may get frustrated. Hang in there! With some time, patience, and work you will make a real difference in your mentee's life. And don't forget to celebrate your successes!
Mentoring Checklist
___You know why your relationship with your mentee is important
___You know how to build a mentoring relationship with youths
___You are consistent and reliable
___You do not use profanity
___You keep your word
___You are friendly and polite
___You are helpful and respectful
___You know the steps for building trust
___You know the keys to good communication
___You know what active listening is
___You understand the steps to problem solving
___You know what to do when things don't work out