How to Be a Good Mentee

In order to attract and retain strong mentors, it is important to learn how to be a good mentee and to understand how to bring value to your working relationships. Building on my post last week outlining 50 Traits of High Quality Mentors, it is important to acknowledge what it is that incentivizes these high quality mentors to invest countless hours of their precious time in your career development. As much as we may like to think that people want to help us out of the kindness of their hearts, your propensity to keep people invested in you as a human being will significantly increase if you bring a clear set of skills to the table and generate value as a mentee.

Here are ten proactive steps that you can take to become a strong mentee and attract high quality mentors:

1.  Always come prepared. When you have a meeting scheduled with your mentor, prepare an agenda in advance and know what you want to discuss in which order. Be clear on your meeting objective and print out hard copies of all work that you were supposed to prepare.

2. Do high quality work independently before committing to working with a specific mentor. This will help you to position yourself as someone who people actually want to work with. Take responsibility for investing in your own career development and show that you really want whatever it is that you are working towards and are willing to put in the time and effort to make it happen.

3. Take care of yourself.  Have pride in your appearance and stay true to who you are as a human being. Don't morph into someone just because you think it's the person that your mentor expects you to become. Be exactly who you are and don't apologize for it. People will respect you for it.

4. Turn work around quickly when collaborating. When jointly working on a project with your mentor and additional collaborators, don't have people waiting on you. When a paper or project gets thrown your way, do high quality work and get it back in your collaborators' hands as quickly as possible. You don't want to be the person that people are always waiting on.

5. Articulate how you can add value. If a mentor is going to invest countless hours in your career development, they are going to make sure they are getting something in return. Take the time to understand what you can bring to the table. Introduce your mentor to people in your network, stimulate their idea development, and learn how you can help them to simultaneously further their own career through investing in yours. Show your mentor that you are equally invested in him or her as a human being and that you want to help them to be the best person that they can be.

6. Be respectful. Your mentor likely has more experience in your respective field, and you need to acknowledge that. Be humble when collaborating and don't be that person who always insists on being right. 

7. Be open to new experiences and ideas. While you will likely aim to find a mentor with similar interests to your own, it is important to be open to learning as much as you can. Be willing to go outside of your comfort zone and explore methods, ideas, and experiences that force you to stretch yourself. Don't run away from challenges that your mentor throws your way. Attack them with vigor. 

8. Under promise, over perform. Winning the mentor/mentee game is largely about properly setting and exceeding expectations. Always do your best to do a better job than your mentor expects of you in a shorter time frame than you agree to. If you know that you have a lot on your plate in a given week, give yourself some extra buffer time when agreeing when you will get something back to your mentor. Then get the given work back to your mentor earlier than promised, and use the additional few days to go above and beyond their expectations.

9. Always be on time. Showing up to meetings and work events late just makes it look as if you think your time is more valuable than your mentor's. Don't have your mentor waiting on you to begin calls, meetings, or presentations. Show up five to ten minutes in advance and get your mind warmed up ahead of time. Be appreciative of the time that your mentor gives you and make the most of it.

10. Be passionate about what it is that you want to bring to this world. Passion and skill is a toxic combination. People want to work with people who are passionate about whatever it is that they are working towards because it helps them to light their own intellectual fire. Be open to exploring new ways to practically implement your ideas, but don't let anyone keep you from dreaming big and following your passions. Passion and drive is contagious and is one of the most important things that you can bring to the table as a mentee.

50 Traits of High Quality Mentors

When most people think about relationships, they think of spouses, friends, and family members. Yet, the importance of mentoring relationships is often overlooked. Like any relationship, finding the right mentor and building a lasting relationship takes time and mutual investment in the other person. One of the most challenging aspects of finding the right mentor is deciding whom to trust with your energy, time, and ideas. So how do you determine whether a mentor genuinely has your best interests in mind or is going to use your talents to his advantage and run you straight into a brick wall?

Here are 50 traits to look for when trying to build a lasting relationship with a mentor who is genuinely invested in helping you to become your best self.

1. He treats you like an equal and doesn’t create unnecessary distance because of differences in objective status or positions in the organizational hierarchy.

2. He gives you access to his world, friends, ideas, and resources without making you feel like you owe him something in return.

3. He doesn’t make you feel like he owns you. He genuinely wants you to learn as much as you can from whomever you can.

4. He doesn’t make you feel the constant need to prove yourself after earning his initial respect.

5. He takes the time to establish a relationship with you as a human being and learn about aspects of your life that go beyond your mutual working relationship.

6. He challenges you, pushes back on your ideas, and calls you out when you are in the wrong.

7. He makes you feel like the work you are doing is actually important. He doesn’t just give you busy work to get you out of his hair.

8. He consistently gives you honest feedback and doesn’t just tell you what you want to hear.

9. He shares stories with you from his own experiences to save you from making some of your own mistakes.

10. He expresses an interest in establishing a long-term relationship that goes beyond quarterly projects or short-term assignments.

11. He cares about you as a person first and foremost and genuinely wants you to be happy.

12. He gets to the root of your motivation both for the sake of understanding what you’re working towards and helping you to internally reconcile what it is that you really want.

13. He helps you to navigate challenging life situations and makes it clear that he always has your back.

14.  He stands by you on the bad days when you completely botch a presentation in front of a room full of clients while looking like you haven’t showered in a week.

15. He celebrates the person that you are and never makes you feel like you have to apologize for it.

16. He helps you to channel your passions into practicalities.

17. He proactively takes steps to integrate you into his network.

18. He makes sure that you are not wasting your time learning from the wrong people or engaging in useless activities.

19. He sets high expectations of you, but equally holds himself accountable for putting in equal effort to move your joint work forward.

20. He doesn’t push off his responsibilities onto you if they serve no useful purpose in advancing your career.

21. He doesn’t shut down your idea generation too early in the brainstorming process.

22. He is transparent about what his motivations are and how you add value to his life and work.

23.  He respectfully pulls you aside and has a conversation with you when things are bothering him, rather than acting like a passive aggressive child and letting things boil under his skin.

24. He shares aspects of his personal life with you and lets you get to know him as a person.

25. He is a strong communicator and clearly articulates what the best ways to contact him are.

26. He doesn’t make you feel like you are inconveniencing him by taking up his time.

27. He raves about you to other people without feeling like he has to.

28.  He teaches you things outside the scope of what he is responsible for teaching you.

29. He checks in with you frequently to see how you’re feeling about everything and to check in on the status of your mental and physical health.

30.  He goes out of his way to help you with things even when it does not benefit him directly.

31. He takes the time to help you to outline your long-term goals.

32. He holds you accountable for doing good work and checks in frequently to make sure nothing slips through the cracks.

33. He genuinely enjoys your company.

34. He doesn’t micromanage you. He clearly articulates the high level objective and then gives you the flexibility to navigate how to get there.

35. He doesn’t make you feel guilty for taking breaks as long as you do high quality work on a consistent basis.

36. He admits when he doesn’t know how to do something rather than teaching you the wrong material.

37. He connects you with other people who can help you to learn skills that go beyond the scope of his skill set.

38. He provides a mix of positive and negative feedback.

39. He gives you the foundation that you need to succeed before blindly throwing you into the deep end.

40. He passes along additional opportunities, resources, and learning material that may be of interest to you.

41. He supports you in your extracurricular activities and hobbies and genuinely wants the best for you as a person.

42. He spends time with you not because he has to but because he wants to.

43. He doesn’t take advantage of your working relationship and gives you the credit that you deserve.

44. He puts in his fair share of effort when you are collaborating on projects rather than making you do all of the work and jumping through hoops for his approval.

45. He takes the time to make sure that you’re always on the same page.

46. He calls you out on your bullshit and encourages you to be transparent about your weaknesses and insecurities.

47. He thinks of you as someone more than just a person he has to supervise. He considers you a close friend.

48. He encourages you to dream big.

49. He respects you.

50. He believes in you.