Angela Perry, the Executive Director & Founder of Future Foundations. She has been a mentor for over 13 years including three of years as an executive life coach. Angela has also mentored disadvantaged teenagers in a NSW school. During her extensive experience there are five traits Angela believes have helped her to build a good mentoring relationship no matter what the situation.
- Build trust
Without trust there is no foundation to work with an individual and start a mentoring relationship. Trust is built through gaining rapport, speaking the same language as your mentee, listening their tone and matching it. There are some people that you naturally feel more at ease with and that is because they have a similar listening, learning and filtering style (e.g. hearing, touch, visual or smell), they have similar tone and pace to your voice, they have similar body movements. All of this is possible to mirror or replicate to help make someone feel more at ease.
- Patient
Unless you are a skilled rapport builder, it will take time for someone to trust and work with you. Be patient. Don’t expect too much at the first, second or even third meeting. Eventually you will click.
- A good listener
Try to understand first rather be understood. Don’t be afraid of silence. Silence often creates the opening for meaningful conversation and sharing. Remember that it is all about them and never about you.
- Asks permission to challenge the beliefs of their mentee
When you get to a point where you are both comfortable with each other you can start to challenge their negative or unhelpful belief system. However, remember to always ask for permission first. You don’t know how or when the belief was created or in what circumstances. If you challenge it without asking permission you can lose the trust you have tried so hard to build.
- Believe in your mentee
Imagine if there was someone believing in you no matter what and who sees who you can be, rather than who you limit yourself to. Knowing someone believes in you and your potential is a great motivator for a mentee to their achieve goals.