Have you ever encountered people who, when faced with the slightest difficulty, do not try to overcome it themselves, but rush to a more experienced colleague for help? The senior colleague suggests a solution, and everyone seems satisfied, but the senior gets distracted, and the junior gains no personal experience.
There are also individuals who appear to be excellent specialists and professionals. However, they have low professional self-esteem and are afraid to take on more than what they currently handle. Additionally, some people struggle to absorb new information; they need everything to be laid out in boxes and arrows, sometimes more than once.
These individuals often share a common background – they encountered a bad teacher in school or a poor mentor during their career.
It is easy to be a bad mentor. A bad mentor can be difficult to spot; they may seem competent and be unaware that they are making mistakes.
Making mistakes is costly.
The relationship between a mentor and a mentee can be compared to that of a parent and child. Both the parent and the mentor have a significant influence, while both the mentee and the child may not recognize or be aware of whether they have a good or bad mentor.
Just as parental mistakes can follow a child throughout their life, mentoring mistakes can extend throughout a professional career. Such errors run deep, and it is not always easy to pinpoint their source accurately.
I do not know how to heal from these mistakes. It is a long journey, similar to that with parents – recognizing the problem and subsequent self-monitoring. Therefore, a mentor must understand and accept the responsibility that comes with their role.
Equality
The most critical mistake someone in a position of influence over another person can make is instilling a sense of inferiority. As a mentor, one must never position oneself as a top-tier specialist with an unshakeable authority while viewing the mentee as insignificant.
Such behavior is a direct path to creating a professional cripple.
This often occurs when someone enters mentorship to boost their self-esteem against younger, less experienced colleagues, aiming to prove to them (and primarily to themselves) how great they are.
I am not claiming that mentoring for the sake of your ego is impossible; it certainly is, but only on the condition that your ego grows from the idea of teaching and learning, from the concept that excellent specialists emerge from your guidance.
Hypercare
Hypercare is just as much an emotional detriment as instilling a sense of inadequacy.
When you are a mentor, your desire to see good results from your work may manifest in the temptation to excessively help your mentee, or even do everything for them, hindering their ability to gain their own experience.
In such cases, there is a significant risk that your student will turn out to be dependent, disorganized, and inexperienced. If luck is not on your side, they may not even realize this.
Thus, by being overly protective, you risk raising a person who, even at 40, will run to their team lead for help with any issue, reminiscent of how some people in their 40s still live with their parents due to a fear of independent living.
Let your students learn to solve problems on their own, and only when they genuinely find themselves at an impasse should you step in to assist them, guiding them on the next steps.
The student is not inept
In light of the previous mistake, it is not hard to make another – allowing the student to feel inept.
There is a particularly insidious cognitive bias known to many as the 'curse of knowledge.' It suggests that if you have known a subject well for a long time, it seems completely understandable and obvious to you. However, when you attempt to explain it, you might encounter utter confusion. The reasons for this misunderstanding can vary, from sheer complexity to the fact that your explanations are based on other concepts that must first be comprehended.
Consequently, it's easy to reach a situation where you try to explain something to a student, and they do not understand, leading you to become frustrated. The student notices this, understands your emotions, and later that evening, they may find themselves at home, listening to sad music and thinking that they are inept and not suited for the profession.
The cherry on top of the consequences may be that in that moment, you might decide that you are not such a great teacher either.
You just need to explain to yourself and your mentee the essence of the phenomenon, to tell them that this happens to everyone, that there's no need to be afraid of it, and to draw conclusions based on that.
I personally remember how I couldn't grasp the concept of asynchronous programming, I didn't understand the advantages it offered and the downsides it had. I was explained once, twice, three times. It seemed like I understood it, but it was still quite ambiguous.
But now, after some time, it seems clear, obvious, and straightforward to me.
Duck Syndrome
Another problem arising from the previous ones. There's a wonderful phenomenon called Duck Syndrome. I'm sure almost everyone knows about it, but I'll explain anyway: Duck Syndrome is when a specialist believes that the first technology or tool they learned is the best one.
As a mentor, you bear the full responsibility to inform the newcomer in the profession that the world is not set up that way, that all tools are useful and important, each with its own pros and cons, and one shouldn't expect their career path to always involve the same technologies.
Otherwise, you'll end up with yet another specialist who has become an ardent supporter of a tool or technology, and such individuals are not really well-liked; they often group together to discuss how their programming language is the best, while other languages are merely envious.
There can be many of the above-mentioned mistakes; these are just the most superficial, yet they continue to be repeated and ruin people's careers.
These things are committed by bad mentors, but let's talk about what good ones do.
Feedback
This is also quite an obvious point, yet not everyone realizes the importance of feedback.
First of all, feedback is needed so that the mentee does not draw incorrect conclusions. It works quite simply – people tend to seek their own answers within the unknown. A person with low self-esteem will surely find evidence that things are going poorly for them, that they can't cope, and that this profession is not for them. Conversely, a person with inflated self-esteem might start flying high and stop developing based on the belief that they are already quite great.
Secondly, the nature of feedback should be tailored strictly to the student. Shy individuals may find it difficult to respond effectively to feedback in a one-on-one conversation, while some prefer to receive feedback more formally in the form of a detailed letter. Others might be satisfied with messaging, where they can think through their next words and hide their emotions if any.
Thirdly, feedback is also necessary for you as a mentor. Perhaps you need to develop your mentoring skills in certain areas, or maybe the student sees something that you do not.
All this revolves around a simple and clear principle – transparency. The more transparent your relationships are, the easier it is for all parties involved.
Tracking Progress
Without tracking progress, it will be very difficult to draw correct conclusions at the end of the learning process. The reason for this is quite simple – without tracking progress, your conclusions will rely on your memory, which varies among individuals. Some remember the good better, while others focus on the bad. Therefore, the results of your reflections on the student's achievements may differ significantly from the objective reality.
Moreover, there is a phenomenon known as the recency effect, where recent memories overshadow older ones. Consequently, a successfully completed stage or, on the contrary, a conflict can provoke greater subjectivity in your conclusions.
It's quite simple to maintain a table that describes the student's assignments, your expectations, and what actually happened, along with all personal impressions at each stage of every day of the learning process. This is very convenient for future analysis.
Clarifying Expectations
Continuing the theme of maximizing transparency in relationships.
Do not hide your expectations regarding their successes from your mentees. This is important for the same reason as feedback – the uncertainty of the goal can motivate the student to set these goals themselves, whether they differ from the desired ones or not is a matter of chance.
If things are already bad
If you feel that you or your mentor are making such mistakes, do not hesitate to talk and think about whether you want to face the possible consequences.
If you have already encountered the consequences of poor mentoring, I would advise even considering going to a therapist to discuss these issues, as figuring things out on your own may not be possible.
I want to emphasize that being a mentor is far more responsible than many might think.
Total
Remember the key point. You become a mentor not just to step into that role and boost your ego. Certainly not to realize how much more skilled and experienced you are compared to newcomers or juniors.
You do this to ensure a quality transfer of knowledge, to help your colleague become more confident and better handle their tasks. By the way, there's a strange stereotype that being a mentor and teaching someone in your own company means creating competition for yourself; people believe that isolating knowledge makes you a more valuable employee.
If you truly believe that training a junior in the nuances of the profession will now lead to your own dismissal, I have some bad news for you.
Source: habr.com
