What over 1000 minutes of mentoring has taught me

In 2023, I took my mentoring to the next level and actually reserved a weekly time slot to mentor within Red Hat but also through the adplist.org platform. In that time, I have mentored people from 14 different countries, with varying levels of experience and backgrounds. Here is what I have learned from these amazing people.

1. Recurring themes

The first thing I have learnt is that there are a few recurring themes that as a mentor you will encounter. The vast majority of my mentees have come to me for help with one of these topics:

• Finding their first job, preparing for interviews.
• Career development, getting promoted or changing career path, moving countries.
• Personal confidence, am I qualified enough to do xyz?
• Prioritising, decision making

Of course, these issues may change depending on your background or expertise. Knowing this allowed me to prepare before my sessions and make a list of blog posts, books, or other resources that I could share with my mentees.

2. You can’t always help

I ‘ve also learned to be explicit when I know that I can’t help. It is in the interest of both the mentor and mentee to be honest about the usefulness of the mentoring relationship. Sometimes the connection may not be there, or the mentor’s experience or expertise may not be useful to the mentee. I have also been faced with unrealistic goals, for example, I had a mentee based in Asia with less than a year’s of experience who asked for help in finding a job in Europe or North America. I made it clear that I could not help them with that goal but I was happy to help them develop their current career to increase their chances of moving later.

3. 30 minutes can be enough

30 minutes of mentorship is often all you need. I have had about 20 mentees this year and most of them we only met once or twice. Mentoring works very well for short term specific goals, for example getting advice on a CV, preparing for an interview or presentation etc … This is something that I would like to explore more within Red Hat where our mentorship programs are focused on long term (~6 months) relationships.

4. Mentoring or coaching

I have a mentoring style that focuses on moving my mentee to action (see Straight-line leadership). Based on our discussion we have I will challenge my mentees to do 1 or 2 things. This commitment to action is where the magic happens and is also a key aspect of coaching. In fact, as a trained Organisation & Relationships System Coach (ORSC) I often use coaching tools during my mentoring sessions to help mentees gain new insights or to get unstuck.

5. Mentor, mentee or both?

It is incredibly rewarding to be able to support, challenge and influence others to achieve things they would otherwise consider impossible. Having seen the impact that mentoring can have on others, I pushed myself to also be a mentee as well, to help me grow and go out of my comfort zone. I have learnt that you should be both a mentor and a mentee and in both cases you will gain value from these relationships.