Mentoring Circles Program – Guidelines for Mentors
For the mentoring program to succeed, both mentors and mentees must commit to establishing a partnership based on open communications and productive and proactive interactions.
Roles and Responsibilities
1. Identify your role as a mentor
- Have a realistic assessment of your skills and experiences
- Have a clear understanding of why you want to be a mentor
2. Communicate your expectations
- Have a clear understanding of your expectations for your mentees
- Clearly communicate those expectations
- Stay flexible in changing your expectations or plans
- Create goals with milestones and deliverables
- Adapt your feedback to your mentee’s learning style
- Be realistic about setting timelines
3. Work together
- Advise on what you know and admit the things you don’t know
- Recognize your mentee’s weaknesses and build on their strengths
- Offer constructive feedback
- Evaluate progress
- Provide an evaluation of the experience
Program Bylaws
- Be an active listener and engage the group in meaningful conversations about professional and personal development in line with the objectives and goals set during the orientation
- Provide feedback using the evaluation surveys (when provided) to help assess and improve the mentoring program
- All topics, items, or issues discussed must stay confidential within the circle