The Effective Mentee


At first sight, it may seem invidious to set out criteria for ‘good' mentees. After all, surely the purpose of mentoring is at least partly to help people become more effective. Nonetheless, how the mentee behaves can have a substantial impact on the quality and type of help he or she receives. Moreover, there is a surprisingly wide literature about what mentors are looking for in a mentee. Take the following analysis from the well-respected US author Michael Zey (1984):

  • Intelligence - the mentee must be able to identify and solve business problems rapidly.

  • Ambition - the mentee must be gifted and have the ambition to channel his ability into career advancement. The mentor also wants to further his career and looks for a mentee who will advance through the organisation with him.

  • Succession potential - the mentor also wants a mentee who demonstrates that he is capable of performing the mentor's own job. The mentor wants to be sure that he has groomed a replacement.

  • Strong interpersonal skills - the mentee must be able to make new alliances for the mentor as well as retaining the ones the mentor has already established.

A study carried out in the USA in 1982, but still not replicated or superseded, adds a further important, if somewhat obvious, characteristic. It found that employees who performed visible, risky and important tasks were three times as likely to form mentoring relationships of their own accord as those who took few risks. It suggests that mentor relationships succeed and are more mutually rewarding if the mentee is chosen for his or her general, all-round reputation for hard work, enthusiasm and ability.

This is the language of sponsorship mentoring rather than developmental mentoring. It assumes that mentoring targets only the elite of the business and should not be wasted on less capable people. Certainly, this is a view that has been increasingly challenged as companies perceive mentoring as a tool of far wider use that can be directed at people of a wide range of abilities and ambitions.

Yet there is some validity in the concept of the ‘good' mentee. Successful mentoring relationships (success is defined as occurring when one or both parties achieve significant learning and/or support) are characterised, among other things, by mentees who are:

  • realistically ambitious for the relationship, having clear expectations of what it can do for them

  • unambiguous about their own role in selecting and bringing issues for discussion

  • prepared to take the prime responsibility for meeting arrangements and the agenda

  • willing to challenge and be challenged

  • able to approach the relationship with respect, good humour and openness

  • aware of the obligations the relationship places on them, with regard to their behaviour towards the mentor and to interested third parties, such as their line manager.

The more closely the mentee meets these characteristics, the more he or she (and the mentor) is likely to get out of the relationship. By contrast, mentoring is often difficult to make work in cultures where a high proportion of people adopt an ‘outer-directed' view of the world - ie they have low belief in their own capacity to influence events in their favour. Although mentoring relationships can flourish in such an environment, the mentor needs great patience.

Other studies of mentoring relationships, from Scandinavia, suggest that the most effective are those where the mentee is highly proactive and the mentor relatively reactive.




Everyone Needs a Mentor(c) Fostering Talent in Your Organisation
Everyone Needs a Mentor
ISBN: 1843980541
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 124

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