The reluctant mentor

Why the best potential mentors hold back

Over and over, I meet people who would make wonderful mentors and who quietly count themselves out. The pattern is remarkably consistent. There are the imposter feelings — a nagging sense that someone, somewhere, is more qualified to do this. There’s the deflection: “I’m just doing my job — there’s nothing special about that.” And there’s the fear of saying the wrong thing, of steering someone in a direction that turns out to be unhelpful.

None of those is a good reason to stay on the sidelines. If anything, they’re evidence of exactly the kind of thoughtfulness that makes mentoring work. The people who never doubt themselves aren’t always the ones you’d want guiding someone through a hard patch.

The honest truth about the role

It’s a theme I keep returning to in the conversations I host on the Inclusion Bites podcast: nobody teaches you how to be a mentor — it’s a completely different role from the one you do day to day. So of course it feels unfamiliar.

We expect ourselves to be instantly fluent in something we’ve never been trained to do. You can be excellent at your job and still feel clumsy the first time you sit across from someone and try to help them think. That clumsiness isn’t a lack of qualification. It’s just newness — and newness fades with practice.

What mentoring actually requires

Mentoring doesn’t require having all the answers. It requires having been somewhere the other person hasn’t — and being willing to share it honestly, including the mistakes. The mistakes, in fact, are often the most useful part. Anyone can describe the polished version of how things went; what people really learn from is the wrong turns you took and what you did next.

That reframes the whole thing. You’re not being asked to be an oracle. You’re being asked to be honest about a road you’ve already walked.

Walking alongside, not advice from on high

The image a lot of people carry of mentoring is the wise elder dispensing advice from a great height. I find that picture unhelpful and, frankly, a bit off-putting. Mentoring is walking alongside someone — not handing down instructions from on high.

When you walk alongside, you ask more than you tell. You listen for what the person actually needs rather than what you assume they need. You let them arrive at their own conclusions, with you as a companion rather than a commander. That’s a far more honest — and far more achievable — way to think about the role. If you’d like to dig into where this differs from coaching, read mentoring vs coaching.

Permission to be imperfect

One of the principles I hold most tightly is this: the recovery matters more than the perfection. You will say something that lands awkwardly. You’ll give a steer that turns out to be wrong. You’ll forget something they told you last time. None of that disqualifies you — what matters is how you recover.

A mentor who owns a misstep, names it and adjusts is modelling something far more valuable than flawlessness. They’re showing that you can be wrong, stay in the conversation, and carry on being useful. The fear of imperfection is what keeps so many good people from ever starting. Letting go of it is what frees them to begin.

How to start small

You don’t need a programme, a framework or a title to begin. You need one person and one conversation.

• Offer once. Pick someone who’s facing something you’ve navigated before, and offer to talk it through. Keep it low-stakes and informal.
• Listen more than you advise. Resist the urge to solve. Ask what they’ve already tried, what they’re weighing up, what “good” would look like to them.
• Be honest about the gaps. Say “I don’t know” when you don’t. It builds trust and takes the pressure off you to perform.
• Share the messy version. Tell them what went wrong for you, not just what went right. That’s where the real learning lives.

Start there, and the role stops feeling like a vast undertaking and starts feeling like what it actually is — a series of honest, human conversations.

Take it further

This guide is the companion to a forthcoming talk, The Reluctant Mentor. If you’re curious about how mentoring differs from coaching, read mentoring vs coaching, or explore how I approach mentoring. Browse more guides on inclusion, leadership and belonging when you’re ready.