What Are the Habits of Successful Youth Mentors

People who play the role of being mentors are critical factors to society’s personal and professional growth. The youth can explore new grounds without fear of the unknown and avoid hindrances on their way to a successful career.

Being students, we can count ourselves lucky enough to have potential mentors right at our disposal. Our continuous engagement with the mentors has given us the opportunity of learning how to trust someone and count them as family.

What makes a person change from being a boss to a trusted mentor, somebody others can turn to for advice, strategy, inspiration, and skill? What are some of the measures to take for an individual to become an effective mentor?
In our article, we have offered from a mentee’s perspective some components of the most effective mentoring skills:

Keen to detail
A mentor can capture a lot of information when they listen to the person experiencing particular challenges. When a mentor listens to what a person is going through in their private life, they can quickly develop a method of tackling the issue and create trust with the individual.

Creating a relationship

It is widely reported that most mentors tend to forget this crucial part. Instead of creating a lasting relationship and establishing a connection with an individual, most rush to impact their mentee’s lives. The majority of the people in need of help always examine if the mentors are people they can trust.

Respecting boundaries

Whenever a mentor asks a mentee some personal question without prior creation of a trust, it is inevitable for the mentee not to answer. Most of the time, people withhold information. Mentors who are not sensitive to private matters about their mentees will mostly isolate them.

Being respectful to differences

Mentors should always understand that both the mentor and mentee come from two different social classes. What this means is a person might feel demeaned by being poor. As one man opened up about his mentor paying visits, “I hardly allow him to visit my house, up to now, the reason being it is not my dream house.”

Offering support and challenges

The most critical elements of an effective mentor are consistency, availability, and offering the much-needed message: “you are of the essence.” In case a challenge arises, an effective mentor leads by example and guides the mentee on how to tackle the problem. In the end, the mentor will have effectively assisted their mentee by offering support and challenging them to achieve their objective.

Acknowledge reciprocity

While in the journey of creating trust and confidence with the mentee, mentoring is always two-way traffic. Advancement, benefits, and disadvantages always affect both parties. Mentors who show resilience for mutual exchange and not how to tackle problems always end up creating a long-lasting connection with the mentee.

Flourishing a fourth-grade student’s imagination
By Oprah Winfrey

“one of my life-changing moments came in fourth grade when I was a student of Mrs. Duncan’s class. She mentored me never to be scared of being smart in life. Most of the time, she stayed back after classes and pushed me to read books as she helped me choose some of the best and allowed me to help with grade papers. Many years later, I had one ambition; becoming one of the best fourth-grade teachers with the most teaching awards that ever lived.”