Do’s and Don’ts of Mentoring

Mentoring can take on many forms, but the goal is to find the right kind of advice, from the right person, at the right time.

In the February 2011 Harvard Business Review article, “Demystifying Mentoring,”  Amy Gallo offers the following guidelines:

Do:

• Build a team of people you can turn to for advice when you need it
• Encourage relationships with people whose viewpoints you respect
• Look at  mentoring as both a long- and short-term arrangement

Don’t:

• Assume that your success or experience prevents your need for a mentor
• Be dependent on on one person to help guide your career
• Anticipate to receive mentoring without providing anything in return

Chip Bell and Marshall Goldsmith, in Managers as Mentors, (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Third Edition, 2013) said  perfectly when they said “The most powerful yet difficult part of mentoring is being who you are,”. “This is not to imply that a mentor must be some kind of super-hero without flaws, doubts or the capacity for making mistakes. Fundamentally, mentoring is about growing—mentors growing with protégés, protégés growing with mentor