Today, we expand on our guide and share 37 questions you can ask your mentor to fully develop your relationship with them, and maximize your growth as a leader.<\/p>\n\n\n
![\"questions](\"https:\/\/getlighthouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/pexels-nappy-935949.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n37 Questions to Ask a Mentor to Supercharge Your Career Development<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
If you need a reminder of what a mentor can do to boost your career, look no further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Research has shown<\/a> that people with a mentor exhibit greater confidence, earn promotions more quickly, and find jobs easier than their non-mentored colleagues. Wouldn\u2019t we all like that? <\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s why in our previous post on mentors<\/a>, we covered topics including: <\/p>\n\n\n\n With that in mind, it\u2019s vital to know what to ask your mentor to make sure you\u2019re putting the relatively limited time you have together to good use. We\u2019ve compiled 37 questions you can ask about various topics to help you prepare.<\/p>\n\n\n \"Success in dealing with people depends on a sympathetic grasp of the other person\u2019s viewpoint.\"<\/em> \u2013 Dale Carnegie<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n One of the biggest challenges of growing as a manager is finding ways to improve your soft skills. Unlike with an IC role, being a manager is much more of a people job and requires more soft skills as you progress through your career. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, research<\/a> conducted by Harvard University, the Carnegie Foundation, and Stanford Research Center uncovered that 85% of job success comes from having well\u2010developed soft and people skills. In contrast, only 15% of job success comes from knowledge and technical skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately, soft skills aren\u2019t something you can learn from online courses or books alone. A big part of learning them is through experience. For many managers, mastering these skills is thus a very steep learning curve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is where the help of a mentor can be priceless. They can give you advice on exactly how to approach particular situations and share examples of how they\u2019ve improve their vital soft skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are many soft skills you need to learn to become a great manager, so make sure you get their input on the following topics:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your mentor will likely know all about the different subtleties of soft skills and connecting with your team on a more human level. They can share what\u2019s worked for them, as well as key, hard-earned lessons from their own mistakes. Both can help you grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you take advantage of that and ask them the right questions, you\u2019ll be improving in areas that have been proven to separate great managers from average ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And to complement learning from their stories and example, here are resources you can check out to work on these areas on your own:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLearning never exhausts the mind.\u201d<\/em>\u2015 Leonardo da Vinci<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Adopting a growth mindset should be one of your highest priorities if your aim is to keep getting promoted in your career. <\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck<\/a> and her TED talk<\/a>, if you believe that people (including yourself) can't change or improve, you\u2019ll never be able to take the initiative for your own or your team\u2019s growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Conversely, if you believe in continuous improvement, are willing to face challenges head-on, and persist in the face of setbacks and criticism, you\u2019ll open up a sea of opportunities for yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s a great visual of how a growth mindset works compared to a fixed one:<\/p>\n\n\n As you can see, people with a growth mindset are always looking for new sources of inspiration to learn from.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n And having a mentor is a great way to feed a hungry mind and find untapped opportunities to grow yourself and your team. You can ask your mentor the following questions to make the most of your growth mindset:<\/p>\n\n\n\n With answers to these questions, you\u2019ll keep evolving as a leader and find new ways to help your team grow, too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And to get more ideas to complement what they tell you, check out these links below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTime management is an oxymoron. Time is beyond our control, and the clock keeps ticking regardless of how we lead our lives. Priority management is the answer to maximizing the time we have.<\/strong>\u201d<\/em> - John C Maxwell, best-selling author, speaker, & consultant on Leadership.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n As a manager, there is always more to be done than what fits in your schedule. And while you may be keeping your to-do list updated, how can you make sure you\u2019re prioritizing the right things every day?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, for starters, if you waste a lot of hours doing administrative things like updating Google Docs and Sheets or other rudimentary tasks that can be outsourced, you're not making the most of your time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In that case, you\u2019re also not being a multiplier for the rest of your team<\/strong>, which is a key component of growing as a leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Think of it this way - if you earn $100,000 per year and work 50 hours a week for 50 weeks a year, your time is worth $40 per hour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That means even a few hours a week spent on administrative work and repetitive tasks can lead to thousands of wasted dollars on something an app or an assistant can do for a fraction of the cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a manager, you should always think of ways to maximize your own time as well as make sure your team is as productive as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Having a mentor can go a long way in helping you do this - their experience can help you tell if you\u2019re micromanaging<\/a> or getting too caught up on things you shouldn\u2019t really be doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They\u2019ve been in your shoes so they can probably share systems and ideas for prioritizing your work well. They can also help you think about ways to be more productive and be a multiplier for your team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To find out more about how to do that, you can ask them the following questions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re interested in more ways for prioritizing your time and being a multiplier for your team, check out these links:<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a leader, you need to take charge of your own career growth. That usually means asking the right questions in your 1 on 1s with your manager to help open up your career to develop in a variety of ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As great as that sounds, it sometimes involves facing some hard truths. You may not always love what your manager has to say about your skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite that, you need to be brave and show initiative and a willingness to work on your weaknesses. And there\u2019s nothing better to prepare you for that than talking to a mentor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your mentor will be able to share an objective opinion about your skills that isn\u2019t influenced by company politics or team dynamics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They\u2019ll be able to tell exactly what you need to learn to take your career and skills to the next level. This way, you\u2019ll know what to expect when you talk to your manager about career development in your 1:1s. You\u2019ll be better prepared for difficult conversations and show your manager you take your own development seriously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Try asking your mentor some of these questions to gain a better understanding of the skills you need to take things to the next level:<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you need more resources on driving your own career growth, check out these posts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n While most of what you hear from your mentor will be based on their own experience, there\u2019s another huge benefit you can gain through your relationship with them - their network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As you build trust with them and ask more questions, they may not have all the answers themselves. Or, they may want you to hear other perspectives. Either way, it presents an opportunity for them to open their network to you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n They\u2019ll be able to introduce you to more people who\u2019ve had a career path similar to yours, share professional events you could attend, and guide you on how to engage people more effectively and what to ask them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In his book, \u201cThe Glass Bead Game\u201d<\/a>, Nobel prize winner Hermann Hesse explains the best way to gain knowledge is to build connections between your experiences. He notes how the best painters are usually avid readers or musicians, always looking to soak up new ideas from worlds other than their own. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He also adds that these multi-disciplinarians have historically spent time together in artist cliques that grew into movements like impressionism, cubism, and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Similarly, when you expand your network, you\u2019re giving yourself new perspectives and ideas. However, to truly be successful, you need to find the right people to meet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A mentor can help you with that, as they\u2019ve likely built a lot of professional relationships to get to where they are today. Use the time you spend with them to ask them how you can expand your network to accelerate your growth. You can ask one of the following questions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n By relying on your mentor\u2019s experience, you\u2019ll be taking a shortcut to the many relevant circles, events, and networks that can shape your leadership style and give you new opportunities to learn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your mentor\u2019s experience is unique. Even if you cover all of the areas we\u2019ve mentioned today, there are still so many other things<\/strong> you can uniquely learn from them if you just ask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Use the time you have together to build a deeper bond with them and find out about some of their personal experiences that have influenced them the most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even if they\u2019re not directly applicable to you, they\u2019ll likely help you see the bigger picture and understand the process of becoming a better manager. You\u2019ll also understand how the steps in their careers influenced who they are today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here are some questions you can ask that focus specifically on your mentor\u2019s career:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Touching on their career specifically will allow you to complement what you learn through other questions in this post. It will help you better get to know them, and reveal unique insights about their life that you may want to repeat, or do differently. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s what having a mentor is all about: shortening the time you need to get to career-changing knowledge and experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unless you both have lots of free time, you\u2019ll probably be seeing your mentor once a month (or less). To make the most of your time with them, ask them some of the questions we\u2019ve prepared in this post and act on what you learn from them.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n That might mean working on a particular soft skill, reading a new book, adopting a new outlook and mindset, meeting new people, or simply putting into practice what you talked about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whatever the area you focus on, make sure you set clear action items for yourself and follow through on what you discuss with your mentor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s the only way to make your relationship with your mentor meaningful and valuable. It also is the most important thing to keep them as your mentor, because mentors want to see that their efforts with you are paying off. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Have you found the perfect mentor, but are unsure of what steps to take next? What questions can you ask them to get the most out of the time you have together? What areas should you focus on to accelerate your growth? Recently, we wrote a post on everything you need to know about where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":19011,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-how-tos-for-managers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/getlighthouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/getlighthouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/getlighthouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getlighthouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getlighthouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19008"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/getlighthouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25729,"href":"https:\/\/getlighthouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19008\/revisions\/25729"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getlighthouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/getlighthouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getlighthouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getlighthouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
![\"David](\"https:\/\/getlighthouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/David-Cancel-one-on-ones-really-pay-off-get-lighthouse-blog.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n1. Questions about improving your soft skills<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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![\"questions](\"https:\/\/getlighthouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Carol-Dweck-Mindset-defined-get-lighthouse-blog-1.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n2. Questions about working on your growth mindset<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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![\"a](\"https:\/\/getlighthouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/growth-vs-fixed-mindset.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
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![\"Questions](\"https:\/\/getlighthouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Dilbert.gif\" "\\"\\"")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n3. Questions about productivity<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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How do you value your time?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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![\"You](\"https:\/\/getlighthouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/plant.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n4. Questions about your career development<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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![\"questions](\"https:\/\/getlighthouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/networking.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n5. Questions about networking<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Connections make the difference<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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![\"ask](\"https:\/\/getlighthouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/pexels-christina-morillo-1181722-1024x683.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n6. Questions to help you learn from your mentor\u2019s career<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Conclusion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"