Topic 9: Building a Productive Relationship

Welcome to this topic, where we will consider some of the ways you can build a productive relationship with your mentees.

Building a productive relationship

ILM Level 3 Award in Effective Mentoring

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Index

Welcome to this topic where we will consider some of the ways you can build a productive relationship with your mentees.Let's get started!

References

05

Emotional Intelligence

Building rapport

Psychological safety

Summary and Knowledge Check

02

01

03

04

01: Emotional Intelligence

Let's begin

The foundation of effective mentoring is a safe, trusting, productive relationship. Research has shown that being mentored by someone you have a good relationship with, where you feel safe, supported and challenged, can have very positive effects, but having a poor relationship with a mentor can be worse than not being mentored at all (Raggins, Cotton & Miller, 2000).

Introduction

Emotional Intelligence Being able to understand ourselves is an important foundation for effective mentoring and a key part of emotional intelligence. This allows us to know what situations we find easy / challenging, what pushes our buttons, how our emotions affect us and those around us and how we can better manage our emotions.

P250: Emotional Intelligence Journey

The following pearl of wisdom® introduces the emotional intelligence four box model and takes you on a journey through the four stages of the model to illustrate the case for developing emotional intelligence. By watching this pearl of wisdom® video you will be able to:

• Describe the four box emotional intelligence model
• State the value of emotional intelligence

02: Building rapport

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The Cambridge Dictionary states that ‘if two people have a rapport, they have a good relationship in which they are able to understand each other's ideas or feelings very well.’ Mentoring relationships are based on trust, and rapport is a large part of this. Good mentors are warm and attentive, helping to put the mentee at ease, make them feel safe and show a genuine interest in them.

Building rapport

What is rapport?

How can we recognise rapport?

Activity: Reflect

Take a few minutes to list the different ways you can make someone feel comfortable in a meeting at work or a social setting outside of work.

To support your reflection, some things you might do without being aware you’re building rapport are:

• Asking questions to find out more about them, so you can find common ground
• Listening carefully to what they’re saying, so they know you’re genuinely interested (listening is one of the most powerful tools to build and maintain a good quality relationship)
• Remembering things they’ve said to you before, so you can ask meaningful questions about their family, holidays etc. This demonstrates that what they say is important to you and you pay attention, a great way to build rapport and trust.
• Sharing some information about yourself, including (when appropriate) examples of mistakes you’ve made and what you learned (this can help to build psychological safety, and help them to be more honest with you)
• Letting them know that what you talk about won’t go any further, so they feel safe to be honest (confidentiality)

Let's begin

03: Psychological Safety

Psychological safety is a critical element in any mentoring as it creates a foundation of trust, openness and mutual respect that is essential for the client to grow and develop. The phrase was originally coined by Schein and Bennis in 1965 and defined as ‘an atmosphere where one can take chances without fear and with sufficient protection’. It grew in popularly when Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson carried out further research into the topic and determined its impact on the development of high performing teams. Edmondson built on Schein and Bennis’ ideas and went on to develop the definition as ‘the belief that one will not be punished for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes, and that ‘the team’ is safe for interpersonal risk taking’.

Psychological safety

What does it mean for mentoring?Applying these ideas to mentoring and the mentoring relationship it could be argued that where people managers develop a culture of high psychological safety, team members will see mentoring as an opportunity. In contrast, where psychological safety is low or absent, team members are unlikely to be open, they won’t challenge existing ideas / beliefs and are more likely to be defensive.

Psychological safety

How to Foster Psychological Safety in Mentoring

08: Summary and knowledge check

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Summary

In summary... Effective mentoring relies on a foundation of trust, emotional intelligence, and rapport, which help create a safe and supportive relationship. By fostering psychological safety, mentors encourage open communication, vulnerability, and inclusive growth, enabling mentees to take risks, embrace mistakes, and confidently engage in the learning process.

Knowledge Check

Knowledge Check

Knowledge Check

• Raggins, Cotton & Miller (2000) Marginal Mentoring: The Effects Of Type Of Mentor, Quality Of Relationship, And Program Design On Work And Career Attitudes. Academy of Management Journal 2000. Vol. 43, No. 6, 1177-1194

• Schein E. & Bennis W. (1965) Personal and Organizational Change. Wiley.

References

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How can we recognise rapport?When two people have good rapport, they tend to use similar body language. If one of them leans forward, or rests an elbow on the table, the other one might too. This ‘dance’ is easy to observe in any social setting, and it can be helpful for us as mentors to watch how rapport builds and plays out during an interaction. To harness this natural system, mentors may choose to match their mentee, to build rapport more quickly. This might mean:

• Observing their posture and subtly matching this
• You can also match the qualities of their voice e.g. do they talk more quietly, loudly, faster or slower than you – how can you match this?
• You might want to pick out key words and phrases and use these, to match their language (this is common in any workplace, where teams / organisations have specific phrases only they use).

Any changes need to be made smoothly – slight adjustments that the mentee won’t be consciously aware of are better than trying to exactly match the other person.

To foster psychological safety between the mentor and mentee is essential as it creates a space for learning and growth by..

• Encouraging vulnerability and risk taking without fear of judgement or negative consequences enabling individuals to feel safe to share their thoughts, concerns and uncertainties, explore new ideas and step outside of their comfort zone.
• Enabling mentees to communicate openly and honestly with their mentors, feeling comfortable to set ambitious goals, embrace and learn from mistakes and test out new thinking without fear of retribution.
• Encouraging individuals to see mentoring as a powerful learning tool, encouraging mentees to seek guidance and clarification, ask questions and explore new ideas with confidence to enable them to actively engage in the learning experience.
• Enhancing a mentees self-confidence as they see that the mentor values their contributions and respects their opinions.
• Building rapport and trust which are both described as cornerstones of a mentoring relationship.
• Promoting an inclusive environment when individuals from diverse backgrounds, with diverse opinions and perspectives feel welcomed and valued.

Rapport relates to the quality of relationship we have with another person during any interaction. Think about the people you see regularly – there will be some people you felt an instant rapport with, and there will be others you just haven’t warmed to. Rapport is built on sameness – where we can find lots of things in common, we build rapport quickly. Sameness can cover lots of areas e.g. how they look / dress, body language / gestures, qualities of their voice, language / words used, beliefs and values.