Effective relationships in mentoring are essential to ensuring a successful experience and outcome. The principle of creating a mentoring relationship may seem obvious. However, to ensure that both parties have a valuable and enjoyable experience, both mentor and mentee should be aware of their responsibilities within the relationship.
Joint Roles and Responsibilities
Both mentor and mentee should ensure that they:
“The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image but giving them the opportunity to create themselves.”
Steven Spielberg
A mentor is someone who has a genuine interest in overseeing and supporting the career and/or development of another person outside the normal supervision process. Mentors may help their mentees by:
Mentors may enter a long term mentoring relationship or may be called upon to act as a one-stop mentoring advice point for a specific topic.
Other roles and responsibilities include:
“Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen and a push in the right direction.”
John C Crosby
The mentee is responsible for being proactive and is expected to drive the mentoring relationship forward. This means selecting a mentor, establishing and maintaining contact with them, and setting up meetings. The mentee is expected to set the agenda and develop objectives for the programme.
Other roles and responsibilities include: