The Mentor Role - Introduction to the JPO Mentoring Programme

The potential benefits of a mentoring programme to the mentee as well as the Organization are enormous. Consequently, being a mentor is a great responsibility. In order to provide inspiration to mentors and hence to facilitate the mentoring process, this paper describes and provides examples of good mentoring, lists a number of tips on mentoring and finally describes some of the challenges and rewards that mentors can expect to gain from their participation in the JPO Mentoring Programme.

What mentoring is all about

Depending on the needs of the mentee, the role of the mentor will often be to assist the mentee in creating coherence between emotion, thought and action. While this task is a challenging and at times difficult one, most mentors will find that this role can also be very rewarding.

The most important role for the mentor is to guide the mentee and to assist the mentee in finding own solutions to their problems. By allowing the space and providing the guidance for mentees to find their own solutions, the learning will be so much greater than if the mentor provides a solution. Therefore, a general principle in good mentoring is that a mentor should not make decisions on behalf of the mentee - even if the mentee should ask for it.

The way that a mentor can help a mentee to find a solution to a given situation is by creating a reflective space, which can help the mentee listen to the answers in him or herself. To use a popular phrasing, a mentor can set up a mirror for another person. In concrete terms, this can be done through listening, offering restrained advice and guidance and through asking questions. In this way, a mentor can be the "container" where the mentee places all the big questions until he or she finds the answer within him or herself. Hence, one of the mentor's roles is to let the mentee listen to him or herself.

A mentor is also a role model, someone you can learn from. And a mentor is a person who can give the mentee a feeling of being part of something bigger. By exchanging doubts, insecurities and other big questions with another person, the mentee achieves an insight that exactly these themes and related emotions are of a universal human character and common for all humans at different stages of their lives. This in itself can provide relief in a difficult situation. Furthermore, one of the advantages that a mentor has is that he or she, through an external view on the mentee's situation, is able to see things in a context and provide new perspectives.

It is a pitfall, however, for a mentor to relate everything to his or her own experiences and to wish to set an own agenda for the mentee. Self-confidence is required from a mentor, but also a certain amount of humility. A mentor is a resource person in the mentee's development and it goes without saying that the mentoring relationship should evolve around the mentee's needs rather than the needs of the mentor.

Qualities, Competencies and Skills

In principle everybody can become a mentor. Although we all probably recognize people in our past, whom we believe had excellent mentoring skills, the basic mentoring skills are skills that can be learned and developed through experience.

Personal mentor competencies first and foremost consist of an ability and willingness to listen and to use own experiences and common sense, together with the mentee, in a way that meets the mentee's needs.

Whereas it is important to note that all mentors have their own personal style - for example educating, challenging or advising - there are some personal qualities that characterize all good mentors. Hence, a good mentor radiates trust, presence, respect and empathy (i.e. understanding and imaginatively entering into another person's feelings). These qualities allow the mentee to open up and share concerns and issues of importance with the mentor.

DOs:

Be a sounding-board
Listen and be patient
Show empathy
Create the open space that will enable the mentee to approach you
Demonstrate confidentiality and respect
Be open and honest
Be constructively confrontational
Help your mentee with access to resources and support
Be aware of expectations and limitations

DON'Ts

Do not provide answers
Avoid being judgemental
Avoid dominating - keep yourself at the background
Do not expect to know everything or to have a solution to everything
Don't be afraid to acknowledge your own need for help
Do not give up - hang in there, even if the relationship is shaky for a period
Do not take the lead and tell the mentee what to do

Some issues raised in a mentoring process can be sensitive in different ways. Therefore, discretion and confidentiality is expected from the mentor. A mentor should never reveal to anybody else what is being discussed between the mentor and mentee - unless the mentee has consented to this. Similarly, the mentor should never intervene in any issues unless the mentee has explicitly agreed to this. Apart from breaching the trust between mentee and mentor, direct interference by the mentor can many times create more problems than it solves. Instead of direct interference, what a mentor can offer is to provide a broader perspective on things and come up with alternative ways of thinking and acting. It may also be required to display neutrality and diplomacy in some situations. In this respect, it is important for the mentor to keep in mind not to undermine line management at the duty station.

Another characteristic of a well-functioning mentoring relationship is that the mentor is approachable, i.e. is available when agreed and creates the open space necessary for the mentee to approach. There are numerous ways to create such open space (active listening, demonstrating empathy, being open, etc), but one is to create a true dialogue. A decisive factor for a conversation to develop into a true dialogue or discussion is the ability to let the conversation float in the air for a short moment. By avoiding to react spontaneously on an observation or statement, we let our normal reactions rest for a moment, and we leave an opportunity for ourselves or the person we are in a dialogue with to come up with more thoughts and thereby contribute further to the subject under discussion.

Although the responsibility for maintaining contact lies primarily with the mentee, it is a good idea for the mentor to sustain the contact if the mentee fails to do so. There might be a good reason for the mentee not to contact the mentor as agreed, and if possible, it is a good idea for the mentor to explore into such reasons. Often, mentoring relationships can go through some difficult periods, and in these periods, it is recommendable that the mentor does not give up.

Just as every mentor has a personal style, every mentee also has different needs - and needs that change with time. It is therefore important to keep in mind that nobody is a good mentor for everybody at all times as personal chemistry, competencies and needs vary.

If a mentoring relationship seems to be in a shaky period, it is advisable that the mentor asks how the mentee feels that things are going, clarifies the mutual expectations of the mentoring relationship, and recognizes and voices own limitations and those of the mentoring programme at large. Due to cultural differences and the sensitive nature of a mentoring relationship, misunderstandings can easily occur. In order to avoid that they will become overwhelming obstacles to the process, it is recommendable to discuss regularly how the evolving process is perceived and whether both parties are satisfied and if anything could be improved.

If the mentee has issues in an area where the mentor does not have any particular expertise, cross-mentoring is strongly encouraged. In brief, cross-mentoring is a way of referring mentee to other resource people with knowledge and skills relevant to the mentee's needs. In order to facilitate cross-mentoring, we will share with all of you the list of mentors participating in the JPO Mentoring Programme. You may also want to refer to resource people not participating in the Mentoring Programme.

The Rewards

Apart from being challenging and difficult, being a mentor can also be very rewarding. As a matter of fact, a new kind of mentoring - reverse mentoring - is currently being adopted in many private companies, whereby senior professionals are being mentored by younger and/or less experienced colleagues. For those interested, we encourage that you use this mentoring programme as a feed-back mechanism to mentors as well as mentees.

Apart from the above, mentors can expect to gain the following through their participation in the Mentoring Programme:

To become a better communicator
To experience the joy of helping others
To gain more insight regarding own behaviour
To gain broader knowledge and information about the Organization
To gain new perspectives on the Organization
To be stimulated with new ideas from the mentee
To develop better management competencies
To gain more insight on other people

The JPO Service Centre

Throughout the mentoring process, mentors are welcome to contact the Mentoring Programme focal point at the JPO Service Centre, Fleur Vernat (fleur.vernat@undp.org or tel: +45 3546 7149) to raise any type of question, concern or idea or to request support or assistance.

If an issue is brought to your attention that may require institutional support, the mentor should advise the mentee to contact his or her Human Resources Associate at the JPO Service Centre.

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