A mentor is someone who helps the other person to become what the person aspires to be. The mentor aims to support the mentee’s growth and progress while increasing their sense of empowerment. It is commonly acknowledged that people with strong mentors move faster in the corporate corridors, nevertheless having identified a strong mentor is just the start of the relationship. You need to be ready to take benefit of the mentoring, here are few tips to help you in becoming a good mentee’.
Mentoring is always a two-way relationship characterized by a mutual emotional commitment to success. Ideally, in a perfect mentoring relationship, the mentor is drawn to the protégé(mentee), and the protégé is attracted to the mentor.
Keep your motivation high.
A mentor would want someone who is highly motivated to succeed in whatever they set as goals for the mentoring period. The motive may be different, but the inner drive to use the mentoring time to better one’s circumstances is always a characteristic of suitable protégé.
Carve out time for the session
A protégé needs to be able to carve out time in his or her schedule to enable the mentoring to take place. If the potential protégé is not able to commit a meaningful amount of time for both the mentoring interaction and for the follow-up work that is required to be done by the protégé. At no point in time, your mentor should feel that you are wasting their time.
Remain positive and optimistic
Mentoring by its very own definition is rooted in optimism, to suitably benefit from mentoring you need to have a positive state of mind with a high degree of confidence about the benefits that will accrue to you. No mentor would like a protégé who is drowned in negativity and is very pessimistic, in such cases it is advised that you go to a counselor, before approaching a mentor. A mentor is not your agony aunt. A good mentee’ does not dump their emotional baggage on the mentor.
Be respectful
Mentors like to have a protégé who is respectful of them, you need to respect and be grateful for the fact that the mentor is going to allocate valuable time from his/her schedule to help you grow in your career. A good mentee’ does not exhibit behaviors like arguing, tardiness and inattentiveness, these are sure shot relationship killers that will derail the relationship.
Be honest
Truthfulness and credibility are fruits of the same tree. If the information exchanged during the mentor – protégé dialogue lacks credibility, then the entire mentoring process becomes disengaged, and a results in the game of hoodwinking each other.
When mentors ask you a question about your personal or work-related front, they need an honest answer, to help you to find the best ways to respond to the situation. By hiding facts, you are permanently derailing the process of mentoring, so being truthful is essential to becoming a good mentee’.
The best mentor-mentee matches occur informally, the mentor sees a bit of him/ her in a more junior professional and is inclined to deliver wisdom accumulated by them over the years to the mentee. The relationship evolves, moving at its own pace and takes the direction that both the parties desire, often with a high level of mutual satisfaction. Using these tips you can become a good mentee’ and grow in your career.
