Boost Your Mentoring Abilities With These 4 Proven Steps

There will be times in your life when you will be looked up to as a mentor, coach and teacher. This could be helping a child learn basic motor or social skills, an adolescent learning how to drive, a friend wanting to learn a new skill or a new employee who needs to be taught how specific systems and processes work and function.

Regardless of the scenario or person, someone is trusting you to teach them (or someone else) something that they believe you are proficient in. Your skills and knowledge will be on display, so you should know how to demonstrate your abilities with precision and clarity.

In this article we will review the 4 steps you need to take to mentor someone to bring out the best in them and ensure that they are confident in their new skills. Let's begin:

Step 1: You Do It, They Watch

The first step of this mentoring process is to do the task yourself while your mentee shadows you. This gives them a first-hand look at the work up close and allows them to ask questions.

It is important to review the steps of the task in detail before starting. This helps establish expectations, goals, and a description of the desired result. Be sure to review the skills (and tools) required for the task and point out any critical steps that will require extra focus or attention. This will help prime your mentees mental focus.

The goal of this step is to provide as much information as possible and answer their questions with examples and experience. This step is focused on providing information and explaining the steps required to complete the task while simultaneously performing them. Speed is not a priority during this step.

If you want your mentee to develop good skills, avoid cutting corners or showing them suboptimal, heuristic or adhoc methods. This can cause them to develop bad or undesirable skills that lead to poor performance, a negative attitude or injury if they are using equipment improperly.

Even if you know a faster way to complete a task, it is best to return to basics for the sake of teaching others. This ensures they know and understand the correct way to perform a task. Once they are comfortable, they may ask for tips and advice and this is when you can show them alternative methods.

Step 2: You Do It, They Help

Once you have completed the task yourself with them watching, it is time to get them involved with some minor roles. You will still be performing the majority of the work, but now they will be helping you.

Before starting, review the work again and ensure that your mentee understands the process. Asking questions involving the steps, requirements, and crucial details will help them retain information and apply what they learnt while observing you in step one.

Have your mentee complete small tasks with little to no risk. This can be organizing the workspace, collecting the material and tools needed or completing the first steps of the task under your helpful guidance.

Evaluate the work they did and provide positive feedback to help nurture their desire to learn and drive motivation. People are more receptive to feedback and instruction when they feel good about themselves.

During this step, provide more information to your mentee like the importance of each step, why it needs to be performed, and what could happen if it was done incorrectly. They will likely still have questions so be sure to take your time and explain the answers thoroughly to them so they can be prepared for step three.

Step 3: They Do It, You Help

The third step of this mentoring process is an inverse of the second step; now they are the lead and you are helping them with minor tasks. But unlike step two, your tasks are not to do the easiest steps, instead, you are there to guide and only intervene when requested or if you sense your mentee is headed in the wrong direction.

Your role is to keep a watchful eye over your mentee and ensure they are following the correct steps and courses of action that you demonstrated earlier. This will help them build both confidence and competence.

If you see them struggling or unsure, guide them in the right direction by asking questions or building scenarios that require them to evaluate what they are doing. This not only guides them to the right answer, but also helps them develop critical thinking skills. Eliminating uncertainty during this step will make step four much easier.

Once they complete the task, review it with them. Provide positive feedback while doing so but also be sure to identify any mistakes or flaws that they may have overlooked or missed. Having this feedback session increases their morale and lets them know the importance of small details.

Remember that their abilities and attention to detail will not be as strong as yours, so give them passes on small or insignificant details that are not vital to the work being done. They will learn these once they have mastered the bigger, more important details.

Step 4: They Do It, You Watch 

This step requires you to trust your mentee enough to give them full control. By this time, they should have a really good idea of how to complete the task from start to finish without assistance.

Observe them but remain silent (unless they put themselves in danger or risk significant failure). If they are still making mistakes, go back to step two or three of this process until you are confident enough with their abilities.

Once they complete the task, review it once more with them. Be sure to instill confidence in them by providing positive feedback on things they did correctly and mistakes they have fixed along the other steps in this process. By this point, you should be confident enough in them to let them do the task without any future intervention.

This does not mean that you are inaccessible if they require guidance or have a question. Still be there for them, but be clear that they should only contact you if they get stuck. Inform them that they need to troubleshoot the problem themselves before contacting you as you will only help them if they made an attempt to solve the problem themselves.

This may sound like tough love at first, but it will help your mentee develop problem solving skills, confidence, and creativity. These soft skills can be transferred to other areas of their work, so do your best to coach them with these skills in mind.

Summary

As you work through these 4 steps with your mentee, remind yourself that you are making a difference in their life. The skills and knowledge you are teaching them have a chance of leaving a lasting impression. This experience could change their life and you could become a major figure in their development.

Save this article and refer to it next time you mentor someone. You will be glad you did.

Interested in more personal development skills? Read these articles next:

• 14 Ways To Develop Strong Character

• Become A Supercommunicator: Three Types Of Conversations You Need To Know

• How To Step Our Of Your Comfort Zone

• How To Value Your Time Effectively

• Stress Free Solutions: How To Handle Running Late

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