How mentors and mentees can learn from each other

Learn how to make mentorship a reciprocal relationship that benefits both people.

Before You Start

Goal: Explore what makes mentorship genuinely reciprocal — and reflect on how to be both a great mentee and a great mentor at the same time.

Article: Mentor and Mentee Relationships: What You Need to Know

Meeting Agenda · Approx. 60 mins

  • Member Updates · 10 mins
  • Icebreaker · 10 mins
  • Key Takeaways · 5 mins
  • Discussion Questions · 20 mins
  • Write It Down · 2 mins
  • One Action · 10 mins
  • Wrap-Up · 5 mins

👋 Member Updates · 10 mins

Go around your Circle and share personal updates. Keep them brief and focused on significant changes or important decisions since the last time you met. It's OK not to have one every month. If you have a One Action update from last time, share that too.

🧊 Icebreaker · 10 mins

Invite everyone in the group to share. Keep answers to one or two minutes per person.

What's something you've learned from someone you were mentoring?

💡 Key Takeaways · 5 mins

  • Great mentorship benefits both people. When the mentor stays curious about the mentee's perspective, they gain access to fresh thinking, new technologies, and evolving workplace realities.
  • Mentees have something to teach too. Fresh perspectives, proximity to emerging trends, and experience in different organizational environments are all things a mentee can offer.
  • Curiosity is the foundation. The best mentors ask interesting questions and stay genuinely open to what the mentee knows.
  • Reciprocity sustains relationships over time. Mentoring relationships that feel mutually enriching are more likely to last.
  • Great mentoring evolves. The relationship that works at the start of someone's career looks different five years later, and the best mentors adapt.

💬 Discussion Questions · 20 mins

Move through the questions at the pace that suits your Circle. You don't need to cover every one. Pick the prompts that resonate most.

  1. The article challenges the idea that mentorship only flows one way. When have you learned something helpful from a mentee or someone you were advising at work?
  2. If you've mentored someone, what questions have you asked that let you learn from your mentee?
  3. How do you stay curious and genuinely invested in your mentee over time?
  4. If you've mentored someone for several years or more, how has the relationship evolved? How have you adapted?
  5. What qualities matter most to you in a mentee?
  6. Think about a mentoring relationship that has felt one-sided. What would have needed to change for it to feel genuinely reciprocal?

✍️ Write It Down · 2 mins

Take a few minutes to connect the discussion to your own life.

Note down any next steps you want to take, based on today's discussion. One of these can become your One Action.

🎯 One Action · 10 mins

Commit to one concrete action — big or small — you'll take before next meeting. Go around the Circle and share (1 minute or less per member). Vocalizing it helps hold each other accountable.

Based on today's discussion, what's one way you plan to learn more from your mentee(s)?

📅 Wrap-Up · 5 mins

Before you break, plan the next meeting and close on an energetic note. Go around your Circle one by one and finish the sentence:

Now I am feeling… (choose one word).

  • Set the day, time, and location
  • Choose the next topic or resource
  • Confirm who's leading the discussion
  • Decide how you'll stay in touch in between