Mentoring support skills
Unhelpful behaviour |
Helpful behaviour |
|
Non-verbal behaviour |
Mentor looks bored, uninterested or judgemental; avoids eye contact; displays distracting mannerisms (doodles, plays with a paper clip etc.) |
Mentor maintains positive posture; avoids distracting mannerisms; keeps attention focused on speaker; maintains eye contact. Nods and smiles when appropriate. |
Focus of attention |
Mentor shifts focus of attention to himself/herself ‘When something like that happens to me, I…' |
Mentor keeps focus of comments on the speaker; ‘When that happened, what did you think/feel?’ |
Acceptance |
Mentor fails to accept speaker’s ideas and feelings. ‘I think it would have been better…” |
Mentor accepts ideas and feelings ‘That’s an interesting idea; can you say more about it?’ |
Empathy |
Mentor fails to empathise: ‘I don’t see why you felt that’. |
Mentor empathises ‘So when that happened, you felt angry’ |
Exploring |
Mentor fails to explore an issue, or to follow up on an idea or feeling. |
Mentor explains in a helpful way, ‘Could you tell me more about what led you to feel that way?’ and follows up: ‘You said that…’ |
Paraphrasing |
Mentor fails to check by restating in own words important statements made by the speaker. |
Mentor paraphrases at an appropriate time to check understanding. |
Summarising |
Mentor fails to summarise |
Mentor summarises progress of the conversation from time to time |