Showing up, listening and offering nonjudgmental support are more important than giving instructions.
This article originally appeared in Kellogg Insight, a publication of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and reprinted in Industry Week
There’s a lot of advice out there for aspiring leaders hoping to advance in their careers. But what about developing others’ talents? Whether you are in a formal mentoring relationship or an informal one, there are things you can do to ensure that the experience is as beneficial as possible for your mentee.
Here’s a collection of some of our favorite insights and research from faculty at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management about how to do mentorship right.
Teach Skills—but Don’t Stop There
The mentors who have the biggest positive impact on the success of their mentees tend to be highly skilled and very successful themselves, according to a study by Kellogg Professor Brian Uzzi and his colleagues.
An analysis of the careers of more than 37,000 scientist mentors and mentees confirmed that having a mentor who is at the top of their game improves a mentee’s odds of ultimately becoming a superstar themselves by nearly sixfold.
But here’s something surprising. The study also suggests that the most successful mentees are those who go off to work in a different subject area, charting their own paths.
“When a student gets this ‘special sauce’ and they apply it to being a mini-me of their mentor, they still do well. But if they apply it to an original new topic of their own, they do even better,” Uzzi says.
