Strategies for Enhancing the Quality of Mentoring Relationships

Strategies for enhancing the quality of mentoring relationships

Mentors can proactively apply a number of relationship strengthening strategies, such as the following:

• Be culturally aware and responsive
• Communicate effectively
• Use and invite self-disclosure
• Establish trust
• Create and respect boundaries
• Align expectations
• Provide support, challenge, and vision
• Employ self-awareness

Be Culturally Aware and Responsive

• Past Experiences
• Culture
• Age
• Gender
• Race and Ethnicity
• Career Stage
• Socioeconomic Background
• Primary Language

Mentees and mentors will exhibit a diverse array of social identities, skill sets, attitudes, assumptions, and worldviews. Some of these diversities may be related to cultural factors (visible or invisible) such as race or ethnicity, sex or gender, ability status, age, socioeconomic class, country of origin, etc. We are all cultural beings, and cultural diversity shapes the research training and mentoring environment.

Ignoring diversity has the effect of privileging the norms, expectations, and behaviors of people in a majority group; this can make it harder for mentees from under-represented minority groups to create a strong science identity and sense of belonging in a research career. Mentors also need to understand that everyday experiences with bias, privilege, microaggressions, and stereotype threat can negatively impact a mentee’s ability to perform in a research environment. More information about these factors is provided in the References and Resources tab.

To recruit and retain the best scientific talent and increase diversity in the research workforce, all mentors are called to become more culturally aware – and ultimately, culturally responsive – in their relationships with mentees. Some important steps in the process of becoming culturally aware are for mentors to:

• Reflect on and identify their own cultural beliefs, worldviews, and identities
• Recognize how cultural diversity can impact – both complicate and benefit – their mentoring relationships
• Acknowledge the potential effects of assumptions and biases (conscious and unconscious) on the mentor-mentee relationship.

Being culturally responsive, as opposed to just culturally aware, involves intentionally addressing cultural factors in one’s mentoring practices.

Communicate Effectively

Mentoring relationships thrive on good communication, which can be fostered by behaviors such as the following:

• Being accessible and responsive to your mentees
• Creating a balance between scheduled and ad hoc meetings (both are beneficial)
• Setting clear agendas for mentoring meetings
• Aligning expectations for how you will communicate (email, text, specific office hours, morning coffee) and how often
• Engaging in active listening
• Providing opportunities for mentees to talk about their experiences, including topics such as race/ethnicity or other aspects of their identity and background
• Analyzing your own verbal and non-verbal behaviors to identify barriers to communication (for example, recognizing when you experience discomfort discussing certain topics).
• Removing distractions and minimizing interruptions during meetings
• Managing your own emotions and trying to understand your mentee’s point of view
• Going beyond “giving/receiving” advice to probing deeper, considering other points of view, and posing challenges.

Use and Invite Self-Disclosure

By practicing self-disclosure — appropriately sharing information with mentees about your background, personal life, career path, motivations, and professional successes/challenges — you can begin to relate on a deeper level, while role modeling the expectation that your mentees can do the same with you.

Think about your own experiences as an early-stage investigator, and share them as a way to encourage openness and self-disclosure by your mentees. You might discuss your own failures; better yet, talk about what you learned from your mistakes and how you turned them into successes.

Being willing to share your stories may be particularly important for mentees who are first generation college or graduate school students. If you are from a racial or ethnic group that is underrepresented in your field, hearing about your training and work experiences could have a powerful impact on your mentees.

Caveat: Be careful to balance self-disclosure with good questioning and listening skills. Ultimately, the focus should remain on your mentees, rather than on you!

Establish Trust

Trust is essential for a successful mentoring relationship.

Without trust in their mentors, early-stage investigators might have difficulty:

• Admitting “I don’t know”
• Taking appropriate risks
• Communicating about a situation that is interfering with their success

Without trust in their mentees, senior investigators might have difficulty:

• Disclosing their own mistakes or challenges as teachable moments
• Encouraging independence in their mentees
• Expressing support for their mentees’ decisions

Overall, mentees need to trust that their mentors have their best interests in mind when providing feedback and advice. Mentors and mentees alike need to be confident that their relationship is cooperative, rather than competitive.

Use and Model Trust-Building Behaviors

Behaviors can either build trust or erode trust.

As a mentor, you can build trust in many ways:

• Acknowledging your mentee’s strengths
• Encouraging your mentee to test new ideas or approaches
• Respecting your mentee’s decisions, even if they differ from your recommendations
• Being honest and candid
• Following through on your commitments
• Asking for and being open to feedback from your mentee.
• Keeping your mentoring conversations confidential

It is important that you not only use trust-building behaviors with your mentees, but also model them when interacting with other colleagues.

Create and Respect Boundaries

Mentors need to consider and tactfully set boundaries in their mentoring relationships. Boundaries might include your time investment in the relationship, your level of interaction, the scope of your mentoring roles and responsibilities, or topics you are willing (and perhaps less willing) to discuss. When possible, establish these boundaries early in the relationship. If boundary issues arise later on, address them promptly with openness and respect.

Keep in mind that an individual’s interpretation of respectful boundaries might differ from your own by virtue of differences in age, personality, gender, country of origin, race, religion, etc. Both partners in a mentoring relationship need to feel comfortable and respected.

Because traditional mentoring relationships have an inherent power differential, mentors need to carefully manage their behaviors to ensure they do not cross a boundary that results in exploiting or inappropriately delegating to the mentee, even if unintentional.

Align Expectations

Mentors and mentees are encouraged to identify a set of mutually agreed upon expectations for their work together. These might include expectations for the mentoring relationship itself (such as what each partner hopes to gain, what resources the mentor will provide, how co-mentors will communicate), and expectations for the mentee’s development (such as specific milestones the mentee is expected to reach under the mentor’s guidance). Alignment of expectations is especially important when mentoring occurs within the context of a formal program.

Expectations in a mentoring relationship are often assumed, rather than explicitly discussed. A lack of clarity in expectations can lead to problems over time. In contrast, the actual process of discussing and aligning expectations—which might require some negotiation between a mentor and mentee—can foster trust and open communication, thus providing the foundation for a good relationship.

An inability to align expectations at the start suggests there might be a mismatch in the mentoring relationship. This realization is better reached before either partner makes a significant investment in the relationship.

Initial expectations are important to define but should also be revisited periodically and revised as needed, particularly as a mentee’s independence grows.

Provide Support, Challenge, and Vision

Effective mentors encourage their mentees to articulate a career vision: a personalized view of what a satisfying and successful career looks like. They then support that vision over the course of the mentoring relationship by simultaneously issuing challenges and providing significant support to their mentees. A “high challenge-high support” approach to mentoring creates the tension needed for change and growth in mentees.

You can challenge your mentees by: Setting high expectations, assigning tasks that are outside of their comfort zone, suggesting (but not dictating) new approaches or ways of thinking, etc.

You can support your mentees by: Listening actively, providing resources, expressing positive regard and respect, helping to solve problems, connecting them to people and opportunities, etc.

Employ Self-awareness

Navigating the complexity of the mentor role is greatly facilitated by an honest willingness to reflect periodically, and critically, on your own mentoring practices and mentoring relationships. A good time to reflect is shortly before or after you meet with a mentee. Ask yourself:

• How do you feel about working with this person?
• What seems to be working well? What challenges are starting to emerge?
• How well do you think you are meeting this mentee’s individual needs, especially those whose backgrounds and career goals differ from your own?
• What ideas do you have for making the mentoring relationship more effective, productive, and enjoyable? (Consider asking your mentees this same question!)

In addition to introspection, it can be useful to learn more about effective mentoring practices from the literature and to discuss your mentoring approaches (both your perceived strengths and challenges) with other colleagues. These types of behaviors – thinking critically, staying abreast of new knowledge, and discussing ideas with other professionals in the field – are not new to scientists. Applying these skills to the mentoring role can provide you with new insights about how to optimize outcomes for the people you mentor.