Managing the Mentoring Fear Factor

If you’ve decided to take on the role of a mentoring manager and develop a protégé from your staff in a one-on-one relationship, the first step you need to take is to find out what that person wants to achieve as a result of the mentoring process.  This is relatively easy to do.  In a mentoring relationship, learners are usually straightforward in telling you want they want.

What they don’t tell you, however, is what they fear.

Mentoring is a learner-focused process.  You want to do the best you can in bringing out the best in your learners.  Sensitivity towards some of the apprehensions they might have about this process can make you more effective.  Let’s examine what some of those learner fears might be.

Like most of us, learners may fear the unknown.  Coming into a mentoring relationship presents new situations and circumstances which may cause nervousness and discomfort.  You can mitigate this, of course, with a warm and welcoming approach.  And, you can also take advantage of this.  Fear of the unknown is often accompanied by anticipation, which can be functional in helping your learners raise their performance.

In addition, your learners may fear an early sense of failure.  The outcome of a successful mentoring process is improvement in performance, and many learners begin with anxiety about not coping.  Where learners feel their abilities are poor, they may feel vulnerable.  If you can anticipate this, you can be more sensitive in assuring your learners that your role is to encourage them rather than to judge or evaluate them.

This leads us to the fear your learners may have of being scrutinized.  They may feel that their performance is constantly under a microscope with you and everyone else looking in.  They may receive a good deal of feedback from you about how others see them.  To relieve this, always evaluate your learners fairly.  A heavy, judgmental approach can cause more harm than good.

Finally, your learners may fear the relationship itself.  Until you’ve established trust and openness, a mentoring relationship between a senior manager and a subordinate can be intimidating.  Soon after the ice is broken, however, this fear recedes.

Anticipate these fears in your learners.  Acknowledge them and provide assurance.  Make adjustments in your style if necessary.  The sooner you help your learners overcome their fears, the sooner you can guide them towards self-development.