Last year I was invited to join a mentoring programme as part of a new initiative set up for females who were either current or aspiring leaders in education.

As I was new to a senior leadership role in my current school, I saw it as the chance to speak to a more experienced leader and gain a useful outside perspective.

As it turned out, I was being asked to be a mentor to two mentees. Imposter syndrome immediately set in. However, I overcame this and signed up and it turned out to be a highly fulfilling experience.

For anyone else who may be tasked with mentoring someone in the year ahead, here are some key tips and ideas I found to make the process work for all involved.

1. Establish a rapport

This is perhaps the most important aspect - you have to really understand who your mentee is and let them tell you their story.

I had two very different mentees with very different leadership experiences, so it was important to ensure they each felt comfortable opening up about their career hopes and goals as well as admitting to any concerns or weaknesses.

In the very first meeting, mentees shared their narratives with me. We chatted about how they reached the position they were in and what their future goals and aspirations were. This initial profiling helped me to identify ways in which I could share my own experiences that were relevant to them.

You also have to be ready to share your story so you can build a relationship of trust based on opening up and admitting to feelings - ranging from excitement to doubts and worries. I think it was reassuring to my mentees to hear that I’d had, and still do have, my fair share of these emotions, too.

2. Prepare questions - but be prepared to listen, too

I found it really useful to prepare questions at the start to ensure there would be no long silences or gaps in the sessions we had.

For example, almost as a standard set of questions to feed into later discussions, I would have questions prepped in the following areas:

• Skills: What are you working on to upskill yourself this term? Think of something that you’ve learned and shared with a colleague or something that you taught someone.
• Problem solving: What’s been tricky this week and how did you manage it?
• Networking: Who are the people you reached out to recently?

At other times, though, especially as the rapport grew, all it took was a simple, “How have you been since we last met?” to get the conversation going.

3. Set goals, targets and times

Mentoring needs dedicated time set aside if it’s to be taken seriously. In my first meeting, I discussed long- and short-term goals and we made a plan together, breaking down big goals into smaller steps.

Targets were easy to set once I understood my mentee’s positions and what their goals were. One of my mentees had an important decision to make by the end of the academic year, so we broke the year up into stages and added mini checkpoints for what could be realistically achieved at each stage to help aid the decision.

Another was focused more on leadership skills and developing their team, so we marked out ways to evaluate and review relationships within their department at different times of the year.

We also discussed how often we would meet and how long the meetings would take. This ensured that both sides were in agreement on the time commitment.

With different timetables and different responsibilities outside of work, we agreed on a particular day and time we knew that we would generally be free to meet.

Flexibility was also key, as we know what it’s like to get last-minute meetings or for personal issues to arise, and so this level of understanding ensured that no one felt bad about having to rearrange sessions. It takes the pressure off knowing that it’s not a formal meeting set in stone.

4. Monitor progress

It’s also important to keep track of discussions and always refer back to the original dialogue, remembering what was discussed in the previous meeting.

You can’t type away while in a meeting but I found keeping a handwritten journal, where I could make notes during the meeting, was really effective and made the sessions feel more structured and purposeful.

I also used this to highlight things to celebrate and discuss achievements. Likewise, I also asked mentees to journal what was discussed at the sessions so that they too could reflect on what had been discussed and ways in which they were evaluating their own unique situations.

5. Reflect on yourself, too

In the process of sharing my own experiences, I started to reflect a lot more on my own decision-making and leadership skills and style.

It made me review and evaluate and even made me think about mistakes I had made and how I would deal with things differently if faced with the same problems again.

This was not something I had expected but was an invaluable benefit to being a mentor that I would encourage anyone who is asked to take on a similar role to be aware of and be open to, as it makes it feel far more like a two-way process.

Overall, what started as quite a daunting experience was one of the most rewarding experiences I have had as a female leader, and one I suggest all leaders should embrace if offered the opportunity.

Maddy Jones is assistant head of secondary at The International School @ ParkCity in Kuala Lumpur