Startup Mentoring: 5 Keys to Being a Good Mentor

Being a good mentor is never an easy job, you need to take care of your mentee’s performance and use your experience to guide them for their development. But you need to be attentive and listen to your mentees about their problems and teach them ways to overcome those problems. One of the leading examples of a good mentor is Reza Satchu who serves as Director of the Company. He is a Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Alignvest Management Corporation. Reza Satchu’s mission is to increase Canadian prosperity and accelerate the trajectory of Canada’s most promising entrepreneurs.

Here are 5 keys to being a good mentor:

Communicate and listen:

“A mentor enables a person to achieve. A hero shows what achievement looks like,” said John C. Mather, an American astrophysicist, cosmologist and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate for his work on the Cosmic Background Explorer Satellite with George Smoot. His work helped cement the big-bang theory of the universe.

A mentor’s role is to help their mentee in achieving their goal. A good mentor will try to connect with their mentees to build strong relationships so that they can understand their mentee’s strengths and weaknesses. When a mentor provides effective communication to their mentees, it will help them to easily understand their mentor’s guidance. 

When a mentor tries to communicate with their mentees on regular basis then they will be able to understand the area where the mentees need development. Try to listen carefully about their mentee’s issues and problems that they face during work and encourage them to overcome those problems.  

Offer constructive criticism:

When you ask your family members or friends to provide you feedback on what area you need improvement in, they will not able to provide you complete information because they don’t want to hurt you. But a good mentor can provide brutal criticism to their mentees on which area they need improvement, but a mentor knows how to deliver criticism without breaking the confidence of their mentees. Successful mentors have already gained the experience of failure and success, so they can use those experiences to share with their mentees to help them in their personal development. 

Practice empathy:

The most important thing in a mentor-mentee relationship is that the mentor should be able to relate with their mentees so that they can understand their perspective and feelings. When a mentee fell problem or difficulty in any situation then you should encourage them and try to provide them different ways to solve their problems. Empathy is the most crucial trait of being a good mentor. You need to practice empathy on regular basis to strengthen the mentor-mentee relationship. Try to listen more, be curious about what other is telling, appreciate those who show better improvement, and guide them to learn more skills for their personality development.

This will help the mentees to form trust and faith with their mentor and provide hard work to show effective and efficient results. 

Let your mentee make decisions:

Allow your mentee to make their own decisions so that they learn their role. The mentee should be able to think on the spot with competing demands and high pressure, and you can help them by guiding them. Encourage your mentee to develop new skills so that they can be creative and innovative in finding any solution. 

Work on becoming a positive role model:

A mentor is the role model for their mentees and mentees learn those traits that their mentor shows on regular basis. So, you should be aware of how you behave and interact with your mentees. Your way of dealing with bad situations can influence the mentees to learn those traits and use them whenever they need help.

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