Best Practices: Mentoring from a Distance

If your mentor-mentee relationship is thriving, congratulations, and keep up the good work! If you’re feeling, however, like you and your mentee aren’t connecting as well as you were in the beginning, or that your rapport has stalled, don’t worry—you are not alone! Even in the best of times, it’s common for mentors and mentees to hit roadblocks. In pandemic times, the challenges for forging strong connections are greater than usual. The silver lining is that most of us have strengthened our skills for staying socially connected while physically distant. This brief handout contains four quick tips for assessing your mentor-mentee relationship and/or jump-starting a stalled exchange. The references at the end contain a few links for more in-depth reading.