I recently attended a Toastmaster’s meeting and delivered a speech on Leadership through Mentorship and the lessons learned through an unintentional mentorship I had in a previous role. In an earlier role, I unintentionally became a mentor for a colleague of mine, let’s call her Jane. She and I often had conversations on career goals, expectations, advice, and project work. Over the next year, I began to develop my skills as a mentor and learned three critical lessons from this experience that I wanted to share with you.
Develop Your Listening Skills
When I first started working with Jane, I noticed she lacked confidence in her skills and abilities. I found this out by taking a step back from our conversations to listen to what she was saying. Instead of focusing the discussion on myself, I often find myself quietly listening, absorbing the information as it flows from the other person. I have seen silence as a powerful tool during my mentorships, as the other person tends to open up more and share their thoughts. Lennox Morrison has a great article discussing the subtle power of silence in a conversation.
As I listened to Jane, I heard common phrases about how she compared herself to the work of others on the team, didn’t feel she provided enough business value, and was lagging. I empathized with her in our early conversations because I thought the same way at times. Imposter syndrome can affect many of us in the tech industry and Data Science.
Through our conversations, I learned how important it was to step back from the conversation and listen to the concerns of individuals on my team. I was able to understand better what they were feeling and determine how we could resolve issues.
Ask Targeted Questions
As the mentorship continued and I got better at listening to my team and Jane, I learned that asking targeted questions helped guide the conversation when I did speak up. My definition of a targeted question is a carefully worded question that you can ask during a critical or transitional point in the conversation that will require some thought on the other person’s part. Sometimes you can’t answer these questions right then and there in a 1:1 or a team meeting, but they can be taken back by the person you are speaking with. The question gives them something to ponder between now and the next meeting.
Depending on the topic of the 1:1 with your mentee or teammate, the questions you ask will vary. Despite the variation, you can stick with the 5 W’s and H when asking your questions. Who, What, Where, When, How, and Why. Something Jane and I focused on in our meetings was the idea of providing business value with your work. In a conversation like this, here are some examples of questions I may ask using the 5 W’s and H:
Who is the target audience of your analysis when providing business value? Are you expecting the wrong group of people to appreciate your efforts? Is your presentation tailored to the right audience?
What do you feel will help you provide improved business value to the team? Are there actions you can take to work towards that? If there are actions, consider defining some SMART goals that will help you achieve that.
Where do you see yourself in 3 months / 6 months / 1 year? Do you want to be working on what you are doing now, or should you look to shift your focus to projects that would align with your goals? In this case, we spoke about backend automation of processes versus analyses and analytics that would be more customer-facing. Understanding where you are currently and where you want to be can help you align your goals to fit the business value you want to add.
When do you envision this change occurring? If you want to act on any of the actions you have taken away, determine the best timeframe to do so.
How do you define business value within the team and for yourself? Providing value to your team can mean different things to different people. For myself, I focused on better communication between teams, a clear understanding of the roadmap, and automation / streamlining of crucial data science processes. But for others, the value they provide can vary. Some of my teammates focused on providing the right analytics to customers, what it meant to give the best customer support during an issue, and how to improve the front-end customer-facing tool. You will need to define business value for yourself and understand how it fits your team’s objectives.
Why do you feel your work has not provided enough business value? Do you think this way because your work is backend vs. customer-facing? Some projects may not be front-facing and seen as essential to every team member, but that doesn’t mean the work is not valuable. As I said earlier, imposter syndrome affects many of us. I often have had the feeling that my work was not providing value, wasn’t good enough, or someone was doing better than me. When talking with Jane, I realized she felt the same way. She wasn’t seeing how her work was helpful to others. In our conversations, I often asked why she felt this way. By the end of our mentorship engagement, she began to see the value she provided to the team, was presenting her work in front of more people, and felt better about what she was doing.
Through careful listening and targeted questions, I learned more about Jane and her vision for the future. Through our many conversations, I watched her grow as a data science engineer and develop her skills and confidence in her work. She began to take on more significant projects, and saw the value she was adding to the team.
Reflect and Review
At the end of each conversation and each mentorship, you can’t just walk away. It will help if you take the time to reflect and review what went well, what didn’t, and where you can improve things. When working with different teams or individuals, the best action I like to take is to ask for regular feedback. When I ask for this feedback, I look to understand their perspective of the engagement and how it can be improved moving forward. Similar to my targeted questions during the mentorship, I ask them questions related to their experience. If the person(s) you are working with does not want to give feedback, that is fine. You should still take the time to reflect on your experience, noting down what you learned about yourself and working with others.
Final Thoughts
Leadership can often be seen as a positional change at work, such as being a team lead or transitioning into higher levels of management. But leadership is not just about the title. As Ben Davis states, leadership is "the art of motivating a group of people to act toward achieving a common goal." As I worked as a mentor and team lead, I learned three key lessons:
- Develop your listening skills and let the silence fill the room. You can learn so much from a person if you give them the space to express themselves.
- Learn to ask targeted questions based on what the other person is saying. Understand where they are coming from, and ask them questions that will make them think. They may not always have an answer, but now it gives them something to ponder before the following conversation.
- After the discussion has ended, take time to reflect and review what you have learned. There is always something you can take away from these conversations, either about your mentee, your team, or yourself. Use this as an opportunity to improve.
What has been your biggest takeaway during your own Mentorship experiences?