Everyone Needs a Mentor

The mentor from hell exists - at least in the minds of mentees who have been unfortunate enough to encounter him or her. Consider this story from a young manager, recalling his days as a graduate mentee:

Once every six months I'd be summoned to the great man's presence. I'd come slightly early and he would always be running late. I'd sit in the ante-room, where his secretary made sure I didn't steal any paperclips. As I was shown in, he'd always be putting away my file - reminding himself of who I was. Then he'd talk at me solidly for over an hour. Finally, he'd ask if I'd found it useful. I never had the courage to tell him the truth … !

This mentor hadn't a clue and probably didn't want to know how to do the job properly anyway - it might have spoiled the ego trip. He might have been horrified to be told that good mentors speak for less than 20 per cent of the time, address issues raised by the mentee, and expect to engage in quality dialogue on a much more frequent basis than once every six months.

Some other common toxic mentors include:

• people who rush around ‘helping' others in order to avoid addressing their own issues and often end up transferring their problem into the mentee's situation

• people who have an alternative agenda

• people who take umbrage when the mentee adopts a different solution from the one they have proposed

• people who are not switched on to their own learning.