Topic 5e: Developing Self-Awareness

As a mentor, we need to be able to identify when we’re judging a person or situation, and how this is affecting the support we provide. In this section we will expore why empathy is an important part of effective mentoring.

Developing Self-Awareness

ILM Level 3 Award in Effective Mentoring

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Remaining non-judgemental

We all make judgements, it’s a natural part of being human. Empathy is an important part of effective mentoring, where we can try to truly understand what’s going on for the other person. One helpful place to start, is to become more aware of our values and beliefs, as these are the foundations of how we feel about things and the decisions we make. The iceberg model is one way to explore this.

Attitudes

Beliefs

Values

Behaviour

Unconscious bias

Activity - Thinking about your values, what is most important to you, what you feel is right, can be a helpful starting point. Use the steps in this article to guide you through a values assessment:

MindTools: What are your values?

Understanding your values

Our beliefs can be very hard to access – they’re deep seated and whilst they guide our actions and behaviours, we’re not consciously aware of them, as they sit within our unconscious bias. A helpful tool for measuring some of our biases is the Harvard Implicit Association Test. This is a reliable, quick and simple online tool, that accesses our unconscious systems to measure the strength of our bias in a number of areas.

Implicit Association Test (IAT)

Activity: Have a look at the tests and pick a couple of areas to test your bias. What did the results show? How can you reflect on these and look for opportunities to test and challenge that bias in your day to day life? Our biases can be at odds with our conscious thoughts, so if you don’t recognise yourself in the response, look out for those opportunities to test your feelings and decisions in relation to that bias.

Understanding your own mentoring approach

In this section we’ve explored what makes you unique, and how that might set you apart from other mentors. This builds on the work you did in the Mentoring Skills section, where you had a go at a range of diagnostics, giving you additional information about your preferences and values. We’re going to use all this information in the next activity. As a mentor, you are likely to be asked to write a short biography (one paragraph) so prospective mentees can decide whether they want to approach you for mentoring. Each mentor’s biography is different, and it should be; it’s intended to paint a picture of who you are and how you work. This can be one of the first opportunities to build rapport with a new mentee, sharing areas that we might have in common, or that they feel drawn to.

Activity: Write your own mentor biography

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Behaviours: This is the only part of the iceberg we can see clearly in others. It is the only part above the surface of the water, visible to all. Our behaviours are how we act in any given situation. Those behaviours are driven and shaped by the three areas underneath the water. Raising awareness about our values, beliefs and attitudes can help us to understand why we feel a certain we about specific situations or people, decide whether this serves us and what changes we might want to make.

Attitudes: Our beliefs and values will shape our attitudes, how we treat others and approach situations. Based on what we deem to be important / unimportant, good / bad, will affect our attitude in each situation, and interaction with another person.

Beliefs: These are stable, long-lasting assumptions about the world. They are ideas we hold to be true. These are influenced by our upbringing, national culture, faith, education, early experiences and mentors.

Values: Many of our beliefs will develop into values, if we see them as being important and valuable to us. They are how we attribute worth to objects and behaviours, and how we determine what is good or bad. We all have our own core values, which will differ from other people’s.

Activity: Have a go at writing your own mentor biography. You might want to think about the following areas:

• What work experience do you have?
• What type of roles have you worked in?
• What kind of challenges or goals do you really enjoy helping people with?
• What are you like to work with e.g. reflective, high energy, curious?
• What other life experience do you have, that you’re happy to talk about here e.g. raising a family, volunteering work, travel, pets