Mentorship makes the world go round

Mentors can make a huge difference. But how do you find one? How should a mentor help a protégé? What are the tactics that make the relationship work? Science has some answers.

A good mentor can make a huge difference (in a career, in life, with happiness ...)

The word 'mentorship' comes from The Odyssey, where the goddess Athena disguises herself as 'Mentor' to guide Odysseus’s punk son, Telemachus, away from bad choices. Mentorship, back then, wasn’t about career advice — it was about instilling “menos,” or mental strength. (Telemachus, like any moody teenager, was “napios” or disconnected. The mentor's job, then, is to reconnect a protégé intellectually, morally and emotionally to their purpose in life.)

And mentorship — whether at work or amid teenaged ennui — works! In one study of PhD students, researchers found the impact of having a strong mentor wasn't much visible during school, but once those protégés graduated, they were significantly more likely to find great jobs, be more creative and mentor students of their own. (And employees with mentors at work are five times more likely to get promoted.)

There are lots of famous mentor/mentee relationships: Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg, as well as Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams (even Ray Dalio and P. Diddy). Einstein was pretty smart, but he also needed a mentor.

The best mentorships, studies say, aren't just about making introductions or giving advice. Rather, the best mentors provide scaffolding: they demonstrate how to set realistic goals, they celebrate small wins and offer support after setbacks, they model how to be more ambitious and push yourself farther. One critical element: The best mentorships usually, sometime in the first six months, explicitly set out expectations — what each person will do, how often you'll meet, what success looks like — and they periodically revisit those expectations.

Sounds great. But how do I find a mentor or a protégé?

To find a mentor: Obviously, bosses, professors and successful friends-of-your-parents are a great place to start. But the most powerful mentors often come from 'loose ties': Friends-of-friends, people we randomly meet at a conference, someone we email on a whim. Why? Because they tend to have access to networks and opportunities we're not even aware of. (So start lurking on LinkedIn and reviewing membership directories of professional organizations.)

If you're hoping someone will become a mentor for you start with a small request. One paper found the most successful mentor solicitations involve: (1) identifying your goals before asking for a meeting; (2) building a team rather than a single advisor (a career mentor, a technical mentor, a peer mentor, etc.); (3) initiating the request with a short, specific ask ("30 minutes, here's the problem I'm working on, I think your perspective on X would help"); (4) treat mentoring as reciprocal — bring energy, follow through, report back — and explain why you admire them and what you hope to learn from them. And don't get discouraged if someone passes.

To find a protégé: Don't begin with a big formal “I want to mentor you” conversation — rather, begin by noticing, checking in, and offering help, and let the relationship grow. When choosing someone to mentor, focus on value alignment, rather than similarities: One big study found no support for the assumption that shared gender, race, or ethnicity predicts mentorship quality; what predicted quality was shared attitudes, beliefs, and values.

And once you become a mentor, read this survey of mentorship tactics among senior scientists that offers concrete tips: be available (the number one complaint mentees raise); be an active listener — ask questions rather than deliver monologues; set clear expectations in writing; give honest, specific feedback early; be patient with pace; celebrate successes; let go when the mentee is ready.

Lastly, remember that this relationship should be mutually beneficial. Strong mentorships grow from reciprocity, so even early on, everyone should be thinking about how both people can provide value — whether by bringing ideas, perspectives, or interesting discussions to the relationship — rather than the protégé being solely a recipient, and the mentor nothing but an oracle.

But there's some mentorships that get crazy, right?

Oh, yeah, there's some weird mentorships. One study found that more than 50% of mentees report having a "negative mentoring experience". Other research has documented mentorships that tip into bullying, sabotage, and — in a surprisingly non-trivial number of cases — stalking. So, that's something to avoid.

Some other odd mentorships include an incident in 1999 when Jack Welch paired 500 GE senior executives with 20-something employees to teach them the internet (the LOLz were ... not very LOL). During World War II, John von Neumann mentored a generation of American physicists, including some — like Klaus Fuchs — who were simultaneously spying for the Soviets. Warren Buffett has said one of his most important mentor was Philip Fisher, whom he met only a handful of times, and his partner Charlie Munger's father, whom he never met at all. In 1909, leaders of the Theosophical Society began mentoring a child named Jiddu Krishnamurti and eventually declared him the messiah. (Krishnamurti, unimpressed, dissolved the Society once he was its leader.)

That said, there's also heartwarming mentorships: Older meerkats mentor pups by disabling scorpions and then presenting them to pups to practice on. (Which is nice for the meerkats, but less nice for the scorpions.) And Mr. Rogers received thousands of letters from children and adults who described him as their mentor. He answered almost every one personally (often 50 to 100 letters a day!). After his death, Fred Rogers Productions continued the correspondence using Fred's own letter templates, making him a mentor from the great beyond.

Do you have a mentor? Or a protégé? Who has made a difference in your life — and how did you thank them? Let us know in the comments!

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