Get stuck into mentoring before you think you’re ready! | Article

A perspective from Alexandra Cran-McGreehin

I have always been passionate about learning and development – for myself and for those around me. I enjoy reading fascinating books and sharing what I’ve learned, going on thought-provoking courses, and tapping into other people’s expertise.  There are obviously technical skills to learn and master to do one’s job well – but one of the most complex areas of development is understanding yourself, what makes you tick, and how you interact with others. That journey is invaluable to develop effective leadership skills, but not quick or easy – and mentors have been so crucial in guiding me during my career.

So when the WIG team asked me to write a blog about my first experience of mentoring, I jumped at the chance! Then I began to think back and realised something quite fascinating: I only officially started mentoring colleagues in 2019 through a Civil Service scheme. There was great demand for mentoring support at the time, due to challenging circumstances which of course only became more so in the following couple of years. I didn’t have any training for this but drew on my experiences to date and really enjoyed being a mentor to several colleagues.

I think the key in an initial mentoring meeting is to listen much more than you talk to begin with, ask some open, searching questions, and find out what the other person really wants to think through and learn about.  Then ask yourself whether you are well placed to advise – do you have experience to share to help the person on their journey?  If the answer is yes, then mentoring proper can begin!

For me, successful mentoring is about an open, trusted conversation where experience is shared, safe in the knowledge that it won’t go any further. I was able to give mentees an outside perspective on their situations, to help them decide on a way forward. I think it’s vital to empower a mentee – yes, I was able to give advice, but the ball is absolutely in their court in terms of what to do with that advice (including ignoring it without thinking I’ll be offended!), and what decisions to take.

I remember a big moment for me was realising during a mentoring session that it would probably really help the mentee if I shared a failure of mine. I took a deep mental breath. It’s not always easy to go there, but we all know in our heart of hearts that we learn as much, if not more, from our failures as from our successes. I worried that the mentee would think: “Crikey, why is this failure my mentor?!”  Actually, I believe the opposite is true – we all experience success and failure, and many people just want to brush failure under the carpet as quickly as possible.  But I think the truly successful people are the ones who can look failure in the eyes and take deep learnings from it, and share those learnings in a trusted way with other people.

Looking back, I wasn’t encouraged to become a mentor until I was already fairly senior – and I think I believed that a mentor had to be senior in order to be useful!  But I also saw that I have been acting in a mentoring capacity for many years – without realising that’s what I was doing, and before I thought I was “ready” for mentoring. There have been colleagues, university students and friends looking for advice on career moves – what should they be applying for, and how should they approach the job application? Sometimes it became clear that it would be helpful to probe a bit more – why did the person want a career move, what were they most suited to, what did they enjoy doing? Sometimes people came wanting help navigating a tricky situation, at work or outside – how to handle that stressful boss, saying no to excessive work demands.

In reality, mentoring is quite simple in my view: it’s about sharing knowledge and experience that you’ve built up, to help someone who is at an earlier point on their journey. If you’re someone who enjoys helping others, you could undoubtedly look back as I have, and think about the ways you’ve done this already multiple times, without necessarily being badged a “mentor”.

So I’d say go for it: start being a mentor before you think you’re ready! Go into it with a combination of confidence (knowing you have useful things to share) and humility (your way is not the only way, your insights are not the only insights). You could always find a trusted colleague who has already mentored, to support you the first time around. Be willing to give time to the process, and you’ll find you gain a lot from it too.  You’ll learn how to listen actively, how to ask the right questions at the right time to enable greater insight to emerge. And you’ll meet some fascinating people and have the chance to help them on their journey – what could be more rewarding?  I only wish I’d been able to use a great platform like Mentor Match years ago!

Want to develop your mentoring skillset? 

Join us for our development session Mentoring Success: Developing Your Mindset and Toolkit. This three-hour experiential learning session will give a 360-degree view of a mentoring relationship. We will examine the opportunities and potential pitfalls of each role and provide key insights on how to set mentorships up for success based on the Whitehall & Industry Group’s decades of experience coordinating mentoring partnerships.