As you advance through your career, it can be hard to know who to turn to for guidance. You don’t always know who has your best interests in mind, and confiding in the wrong person can be dangerous, especially when a matter involves sensitive information. It is critical to find a mentor you can rely on to help you navigate new challenges.
Mentors are people you connect with not just professionally, but personally. They’re people willing to listen and advise. Most importantly, they’re people you believe you can trust.
Unfortunately, mentors are not easy to find. Looking for a mentor is a slow, organic process that requires patience. You need to give relationships time to develop and grow real roots. But how do you put yourself in a position to find a mentor in the first place?
Although you may be lucky enough to find a mentor in your office, someone who knows your work and how you conduct yourself, that is not always possible. Participating in a wide range of professional activities can provide those contacts. Attend conferences when you can, participate in professional association meetings, go to industry cocktail parties and dinners. Try to connect with people you meet and then slowly build those contacts. Sometimes a mentor will naturally emerge from those connections.
Never approach people with the idea of forging a mentor-mentee relationship immediately. No one likes a sycophant, and people do not build relationships they see as purely one-sided and transactional. Instead, keep an eye out for people whose judgment you trust, and who you feel you get along with. When the time comes, approach them with a specific concern or question. Ask for their thoughts on a concrete issue. If the opportunity exists for future mentorship, it will grow out of those conversations. Always let them know afterward how their advice helped you, regardless of the outcome.
Whether a relationship develops depends partly on your ability to reciprocate your mentor’s time and effort. You may not be able to provide equally valuable information, but perhaps you can make an introduction, or share information relevant to your mentor’s field. What’s critical is that your mentor feels like there’s some mutuality at the heart of your relationship.
Of course, as you develop a relationship with a mentor, be careful not to abuse it. Only seek advice on consequential matters. Mentors want to invest their time and consideration into people they think will find future success. They don’t want a ward. Approaching your mentor too frequently may lead them to question your judgment and your ability to manage your career.
Ideally, you and your mentor should enjoy the relationship, but that doesn’t mean you need to be best friends. It is necessary to trust their judgment, and their ability to keep your confidence. It’s great to have a sounding board unless you realize that you’re getting bad advice, and that your private considerations aren’t as private as you expect. Trust your instincts, and, most importantly, be patient. As with any relationship, you can’t force it. Put yourself in a position to meet people who can help you and think about how you can help them. Mentorship can follow from there.
