Many thanks to our best mentor award winners who share their valuable mentoring wisdoms. We hope that you could actively apply these tips to make your formal and informal mentorships better.
Tips from Qinqin Zhao (M&M Best mentor award winner of Fall 2017)
1. Understand your mentee's needs and priorities, and set goals together during the first meeting. Having goals that are clear to both the mentor and the mentee helps a lot when navigating the mentoring relationship.
2. Prepare an agenda and send it to your mentee before each meeting. Agendas make meetings structured, efficient, and productive.
3. Be a good listener. Instead of spending most of the time giving advice, leave your mentee more time to talk about his/her problems, thoughts, and feelings, and probe with questions to guide him/her to reflect.
4. Show your vulnerability and share your struggles. Vulnerability makes true connections. When you talk about your imperfect stories and painful moments, you are showing your mentee that he/she is not alone, and this is very powerful!
Tips from Allyson Volinsky (M&M Best mentor award winner of Fall 2017)
Mentoring requires reciprocal listening, communication, and perspective-taking – it is not a “one way” conversation but instead a dialogue between two individuals committed to learning from one another. It is a joy (and important to the mentoring process) to get to know someone – starting with early experiences and how these led to current pursuits and interests, and continuing through future goals and aspirations. While talking about future plans is part of the process, it is also helpful to stay connected to mentees currently going through major academic/career/personal milestones; one way to do so is to be in touch with mentees right before/after important events (end-of-semester or program exams or papers; interviews; holidays) to check in and offer extra encouragement during these times.
Tips from Clare Waterman Irwin (M&M Best mentor award winner of Spring 2017)
I think what made this mentoring partnership successful was Ji Eun's openness, her desire to hear my experiences and advice. I tried not to preach, but also saw a lot of connections between what I experienced and her path, so I felt a lot of what I learned through trial-by-fire was relevant to share with her. I tend to be a very candid person and I see a great value in putting out there what my experiences were, where there were hiccups, and where I think I could have made different choices for the better--I think that helps others take from your experience what is relevant to them and learn from your mistakes.
Tips from Elizabeth Schopfer (M&M Best mentor award winner of Spring 2017)
I think that the mentoring was successful for several reasons. First, we were both open to learning from each other as well as passionate about our field. Some people might think they cannot be a mentor until they've been in the field for a while, but I think as a mentor it is more important to have conversation with your mentee about a topic, where both parties are thinking through the complexities of the issue at hand. Being in the field of counseling and human development, there are rarely simple answers. Additionally, if there is a concrete answer that is needed, whether it be about the field, Penn, etc., it is okay to say "I don't know" but then thinking through with the mentee what resources are available to help answer that question. We were also willing to share with each other both our successes and difficulties, and discuss how it can/has made us better professionals. This vulnerability not only leads to better mentor/mentee rapport, but also increased reflection and opportunity for development. The similar passion for our work helped make conversations lively and fun! We had also spent a main part of our first meeting on the recommended topics/questions by the mentoring program ranging from how/when is best to meet, to what kinds of topics we wanted to discuss. This helped us have a conversation about expectations, clarifying potential future areas of misunderstanding or miscommunication, and facilitating positive future meetings.