Top 5 Books to Ensure you Excel as a Mentor
Being a mentor is hard. You give and give of yourself constantly to help others be all that they can be. But what do you do when problems arise? How do you handle it when your mentee doesn’t listen? How do you learn to excel at being a mentor? Are there any mentor books that can help you along your journey?
Yes.
Mentor books cover a whole range of topics, from how to better yourself, to how to read your mentee, to step by step guides to getting it right. Here are the top 5 books for today that can help ensure you excel as a mentor.
5. Mentor Like Jesus by Regi Campbell
It may bear the name of Jesus Christ but that doesn’t mean the book is religious. Jesus is known, even today, as the greatest teacher that ever lived. So, he is the greatest mentor you could ever hope to learn from. This book points out how Jesus taught 11 disciples so effectively that 2 billion people follow in those lessons today. That is effective mentoring! By examining the way, the Great Teacher taught, the book looks at how we can apply his methods in today’s world of mentoring.
Regi Campbell is behind the founding of 15 companies and hosts 19 mentoring groups helping over 150 people. It is through the way that Jesus taught that he has found his teaching methods, and it is through this book that he shares his teaching tools with us. With many reviews available from all kinds of people we can see how this book has opened eyes to a new method of teaching, one reader commented:
I have never looked at mentoring this way, and after reading this, I really don’t know why not. This book is very thought-provoking, and extremely well written.
This book of 157 pages covers mentoring topics like:
- The value of patience and listening.
- Using illustrations to teach.
- Giving meaningful investment to your mentee.
- Teaching tools of Jesus and how we can use them in next-generation mentoring.
“More time with fewer people equals greater impact.”
Mentor Like Jesus
4. What Every Body is Saying by Joe Navarro
This book may not be directly teaching you mentor skills but what it is teaching is still worth a lot in the world of mentors and mentees.
What Every Body is Saying is written by a former FBI agent. Because of this, the book is littered with real-life examples of how body language helped him catch criminals or know when a suspect was innocent.
By taking an in-depth look at body language and explaining what all the little, subconscious, motions mean, Joe Is showing us how we can build relationships. How to speed-read people. How your body language can influence others. What feet positions mean. What do the little motions of the eyes or fingers mean?
The knowledge that this book gives is so thorough one reader reported:
“I’ve read a couple of books on this subject and I really should have just read this one!”
How is that going to help you as a mentor?
Several ways. By reading this book you can gain much understanding of what is going through your mentees mind, making it easier for you to discern how best to help the mentee. The 128-page book can also help you to:
- Understand, without your mentee saying anything, if they have understood what you have said.
- See if your mentee is enjoying the way you are presenting the topic.
- Simple nonverbals instantly establish trust and/or authority.
- How to gauge a mood or motive behind a question.
- Boosts confidence in everyday interactions and social conversations.
“It has been well established by researchers that those who can effectively read and interpret nonverbal communication, and manage how others perceive them, will enjoy greater success in life.”
What Every Body is Saying
3. Mentoring 101: What Every Leader Needs to Know by John Maxwell
Mentoring 101 is all about getting the right start as a mentor. It covers the basics of getting started in an in-depth and effective way, helping new mentors to start with the ability to thrive and the confidence to teach their mentees in the best way possible.
A good start is vital to winning any kind of race, with mentoring a bad start can be disastrous for your career. One bad review can lead to mentees going elsewhere for good mentorship. That is what makes the steps covered in this book vital to excelling as a mentor.
After reading this book, one mentor praised it with the following statement:
“I’ve become one of the top mentors in my company all without realizing that I was creating real value for my mentee. If mentoring, be careful not to waste everyone’s time. This book serves as a great resource on understanding the value of the mentor in the process.”
Here are some of the topics this 128-page book can help you to fully comprehend:
- Adopting the mentor’s mindset.
- Creating the right environment to learn and teach.
- Overcoming the challenges of being a mentor.
- Choosing your mentee.
- How to get started as a mentor.
“Always help people increase their own self-esteem. Develop your skill in making other people feel important… A person who feels worthwhile is ripe for success.”
Mentoring 101
2. The Mentor Leader: Secrets to Building People and Teams That Win Consistently by Tony Dungy
Tony Dungy was mentored. The mentoring in his life led to such success he became a mentor. He wanted to help people the way he had been helped. In his mission to achieve this, he wrote the book The Mentor Leader.
After reading the words of Tony and taking enjoyment from the pages one reader said:
“Tony provides a good template to follow in any leadership or management position. He encapsulates what it really means to be a mentor leader.”
Instead of giving you a complete set of new skills to work on, Tony concentrates on teaching you how to use your own unique skills and gifts in your mentoring. His 256-page book covers useful topics like:
- What it means to be a mentor.
- The seven keys of excelling as a mentor.
- How to recover from mentor mistakes.
- How to get your mentee to follow/trust you.
- Examples of excellent mentor leadership to inspire you.
“Your only job is to help your team be better.”
The Mentor Leader
1. The Mentoring Manual: Your step-by-step guide to being a better mentor by Julie Starr
Before writing The Mentoring Manual Julie Starr became a mentor and started reading many books on the subject. She realized that no one book answered all of her questions, so she wrote the book that she needed.
This means that The Mentoring Manual is her complete guide to mentoring. It includes all of the skills and teaching points she needs to help her mentees succeed. And it works! It was hailed by Professor David Clutterbuck, co-founder of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council, as:
“A clear, pragmatic and accessible guide for mentors.”
The book starts by explaining the origins of a mentor and covering what a mentor really is, taking it out of the spotlight of movies and giving it a clear definition. You then have access to an index covering many topics related to mentoring. Here is just a small selection of subjects covered in this concise and easy to read, 200-page, manual:
- The behaviour of mentee and when a mentee ignores you.
- Creating trust and engagement with your Mentee.
- How to conduct the first session.
- How to conduct a mentor to mentee review.
- Setting and understanding boundaries.
- Maintain Confidentiality.
- Taking, and giving, criticism.
- Principles of communication.
- Effectiveness checklist.
- Leadership, Responsibility and organization.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. The Mentoring Manual is full to the brim with all the important little details that make a great mentor.
“Mentoring is most effective when focused clearly on the needs, goals and challenges of the person you are mentoring – often referred to as the ‘mentee’.”
The Mentoring Manual
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