Listening in a Mentoring Relationship
Launch library · evergreen read
A mentor's instinct to share hard won experience can, if left unchecked, crowd out the listening that mentoring actually depends on, since a mentee's own thinking rarely gets the chance to fully develop under a constant stream of advice.
The most effective mentors deliberately listen more than they speak, especially in early sessions, gathering a genuine understanding of where a mentee already is before offering guidance shaped around their actual, specific situation.
This restraint can feel counterintuitive for an experienced mentor eager to help quickly, yet mentees consistently report feeling more supported by someone who first listens carefully rather than one who leads immediately with their own story.
Good mentoring, in this sense, looks less like teaching and more like an unusually attentive form of conversation, one where guidance only follows once genuine understanding of the other person has actually been established. The guidance that follows tends to land better precisely because it was built on real understanding first.