Choosing Tutors, Mentors & Other VIPs

When you ask leaders how they arrived at their position of influence, they will likely acknowledge that they could not have accomplished their successes alone. Along the way, Very Important People (VIPs) guided them in the "right" direction. Your own VIPs can serve in diverse and distinctive roles. When you choose to expand your career, the choices you make about your own VIPs can make a difference in the paths you take. Take a moment to learn more about the various types of VIPs and expectations of each role.

On this page:

Mentor
Role Model
Tutor
Counselor
Coach
Supervisor

Mentor

Mentoring is a developmental partnership through which one person shares knowledge, skills, information and perspective to foster the personal and professional growth of someone else. We all have a need for insight that is outside of our normal life and educational experience. The power of mentoring is that it creates a one-of-a-kind opportunity for collaboration, goal achievement and problem-solving.

Key Things to Look For in a Mentor

A mentor does not have to be a person directly connected with your field of study, work or interest, but it should be someone whom you respect for knowledge, wisdom and integrity and will:

• Commit to being accessible to you (negotiate a mutually beneficial arrangement)
• Willingly share guidance with you
• Introduce you to resources and suggest options
• Support you with encouragement, motivation, positive attitude during challenging times
• Provide constructive feedback to help overcome performance challenges
• Help you set realistic goals, encourage follow through and accountability
• communicate regularly, openly and honestly with you
• Share the "hidden rules" of succeeding
• Respect privacy, confidentiality

Key Things You Need to Do

• Follow through on your strong desire to learn and gain new skills.
• Take charge and be responsible for your own learning.
• Ask questions; initiate exploration.
• Initiate communication with the mentor (and others).
• Take risks.
• Follow advice with a sense of investigation and evaluation of results.
• Set your goals and seek help with clarifying them.
• Communicate clearly, especially when you are confused.
• Communicate regularly, openly and honestly.
• Admit when you don't know and seek guidance. (It saves a lot of time and energy, and that's a great use of the mentor.)
• Explore the resources offered.
• Honor commitments.
• Express appreciation for your mentor's time and counsel.
• Be punctual and dress appropriately for the occasion.

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Role Model

A role model is a person who serves as a model in a particular behavioral or social role for another person to emulate. You do not need to actually know or interact with a role model, but could.

Key Things to Look For in a Role Model

• Qualities you would like to posses
• Qualities that make you learn more about yourself and your choices
• Qualities that remind you about what is truly important in life
• Leadership
• Courage and conviction
• The capacity to arise out of challenging situations with integrity
• Someone who influences others to make appropriate choices
• Someone who is aware that their behaviors influence others and take care to ensure integrity in their actions

Key Things You Need to Do

• Keenly observe.
• Look for someone who sets the good example in your particular area of interest, who has a good reputation
• Find someone whom others look to as an authority, as someone worth listening to.
• Explore the role model's life and the challenges they've overcome.
• Compare and contrast a role model’s pattern of success to those in a similar field who have not been successful and discern choices and circumstances.
• Explore what your role model has done and used to get to their current status.
• Realize that a role model isn't perfect. And, how they optimize their situation in light of imperfection is key.
• Realize that success is defined in multiple ways.

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Tutor

A tutor is a private teacher who gives additional, specialized, custom or remedial instruction on a specific topic.

Key Things to Look For in a Tutor

• Expertise in the particular topic
• The ability to "connect"
• The capacity to inspire you to learn and develop confidence
• Someone who can adapt instruction to your learning style
• Someone who can help you expand your learning styles
• Patience and supportive attitude
• Reliability and dependability
• Someone who can demonstrate growth/progress in achievement of the learner
• Clear communication
• Someone who is non-judgmental, yet who is aware of the areas for improvement

Key Things You Need to Do

• Check and be comfortable with a tutor's qualifications in the topic
• Let the tutor know how and where you need help
• Follow through with suggestions
• Communicate clearly when you do not understand, even if it is that you are confused and don't quite know where the confusion lies.
• Be patient with yourself
• Commit to trying new strategies to learn the material

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Counselor

An academic counselor helps you understand yourself better as you take on new learning opportunities, improve your academic performance, set goals, address challenges or barriers to learning and provide resources for managing learning difficulties.

Key Things to Look For in a Counselor

• Empathy
• Openness and acceptance of various perspectives
• The capacity to identify feelings and to discriminate between emotions of self and others
• Someone who believes in capacity to change and grow
• Someone who can tolerate ambiguity and likes to solve problems
• Someone who is flexible, yet maintains appropriate personal boundaries
• Someone who can provide assessments
• Someone who has access to strategies to solve problems (study skills, test anxiety, stress management and more)
• Someone who has access to academic and other resources

Key Things You Need to Do

• Be open to suggestions
• Express your goals and aspirations
• Be self aware of your own skills and areas for improvement
• Follow through in accessing resources and suggestions
• Communicate clearly
• Ask for help when you need it and before you get frustrated
• Bring necessary materials and be prepared for meetings
• Track your own progress

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Coach

A coach is someone who observes your learning strategies and techniques in a particular area and makes suggestions for changing them to optimize successful learning. They offer encouragement and motivation as you try new ways of learning. This often happens one-on-one, not necessarily face-to-face.

Key Things to Look For in a Coach

• Someone knowledgeable in the field
• Confidence
• Someone who sets a good example
• Someone who is personable and flexes in communication, depending on the learner's learning style
• Constructive critique, with encouragement
• Accurate observations and assessment of strategies
• Specificity in suggestions ("Do more" or "you did well" is vague. The next two examples are specific suggestions. "Practice inserting the Combitube to the level indicated on the tube within 2 seconds until you can do it 10 times consecutively with ease." Or "When you remembered to introduce yourself and your qualifications to those patients, did you notice how they relaxed? That has a powerful effect, both in increasing patient satisfaction and building your own confidence.")
• Someone who can tell you what you may not want to hear, but does so with intent to motivate you improve your skill level
• Someone who will coach you, but not take on your responsibility for implementation
• Someone for whom you have or can develop respect
• Reliability and dependability

Key Things You Need to Do

• Listen
• Be open to suggestions
• Remember to not take the advice personally. The advice is meant for you to try as a way to improve.
• Try the advice, more than once. Skills take time to change and develop. Give the coach feedback on what seems to be working or not, so the coach can tweak the suggestions.
• Avoid being defensive
• Ask questions and for clarification
• Ask for specificity, if things are unclear
• Take responsibility for your own learning and growth
• Keep track of your skill development; this can be very useful in building your resume portfolio
• Be reliable and dependable

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Supervisor

Supervisors oversee the work in an organization. They may train employees, give performance evaluations, create work schedules, act as a liaison between employees and others, lead projects, address problems, give input into recommendations for hire and help develop employees' skills.

Key Things to Look For in a Supervisor

• Someone who will help remove barriers to doing a good job.
• Someone who considers all possible outcomes to a problem or opportunity.
• Confidence and reliability.
• Ability to listen, carefully consider and be supportive.
• Someone who has knowledge of the policies.
• Someone who can manage diverse talents and workstyles.
• Someone who includes diversity of people and perspectives.
• Someone who exhibits a sense of equity, rather than bias.
• Someone who delivers patience and encouragement.
• Someone who can resolve conflicts and learn from mistakes.
• Someone who uses discretion and respects confidentiality.
• Someone who demonstrates leadership and sets a good example of integrity.
• Someone who believes that the employee can achieve and continue to grow in skill building.
• Someone who respects all employees.

Key Things You Need to Do

• Understand what a supervisor can and cannot do. They often cannot change policy in an organization, even if they would like to. They are bound by certain employment laws that they must follow. They, too, have a supervisor that can enhance or limit their capacities.
• Communicate clearly, ask questions, ask for clarification.
• Communicate with your supervisor before something becomes a problem. And, if you anticipate a problem based on one of your decisions/actions. Be proactive.
• Initiate. Share your ideas, step up for leading a project, ask “What else can I do?”
• Listen to instructions and follow through.
• Take responsibility …for the successes you contributed to, give credit to others who participated or supported, and for the mistakes or misunderstandings made.
• Maintain a positive attitude and perform tasks with a cheerful approach.
• Strive for excellence in every task. (It will be noted.)
• Practice self-discipline and patience with self and others.
• Exceed expectations. Do more than the bare minimum or just what was required, or offer to do what others refuse to do.
• Stay healthy.

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