The most important part of being a mentor is to simply be available.

We’ve already shared some helpful tips for how to be an effective mentor. Part of building a strong mentor-mentee relationship is to establish your goals and expectations of the relationship up front. All too often, mentoring relationships begin on the right foot and fall apart over time due to a lack of commitment by either party. For this reason, we wanted to offer some tips on how to maintain the mentor-mentee relationship courtesy of Management Mentors:

• Keep the communication channel open. As the mentor, you need to be responsive to your mentee’s emails, texts, and phone calls. If you establish upfront how often the two of you will be in communication, work hard to stick to your commitment.
• Come up with fun and creative activities that the two of you can do together. For example, attending a trade show related to the industry that your mentee would like to work in could offer a beneficial learning experience.
• Be reliable and consistent. This can help to build trust for the mentor-mentee relationship.
• Take time to get to know each other. Showing an interest in your mentee and learning about what motivates and inspires him or her can lead to a successful, longterm mentor-mentee relationship.
• Actively participate. Ask your mentee if you can observe him or her give a presentation or see what a typical day of work looks like.

To hear about some successful mentoring relationships and the positive impact that they have made, please be sure to check out the Over My Shoulder Foundation website.

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