Print This PostBefore we get started, I’m going to state right up front that I’m a bit conflicted on Mentorship, especially programs offered by workplaces. I think that too often these programs are offered as a way to mould diverse individuals and squeeze them into a career framework that is inflexible and resistant to change. It can be a way for a workplace to say that they’re being proactive, whilst not making real, meaningful change in working conditions. Having said that, I still believe that seeking out and working with a number of mentors throughout your career is an essential part of leadership development. There will always be new situations that we haven’t handled, different frameworks to adapt to, and challenges in supervision that others can offer an alternate viewpoint on. So today we’re going to talk about the benefits of mentoring, the different types of mentors, and how you might go about choosing the right person at the right time.
At the group level, the benefits of Mentorship are clear. Mentoring helps build a supportive atmosphere that can take steps towards surmounting some of the barriers to advancement for women and under-represented minorities1. Mentorship programs collect people with a depth of institutional knowledge, and can help guide others through opaque administrative systems and difficult decisions. Mentorship has been shown to increase the staying power of URM in academia, and as a result, will lead to more diverse role models and a positive feedback loop for retaining others2. Finally, it can help to build a genuine academic community, strengthening ties within and between departments, launching new collaborations, and improving our day-to-day experience at a time when loneliness and isolation feels rife.
So how do we get ourselves some mentoring? The first thing to note is that just as there is no one person in the world who will fulfil all our emotional needs (a phrase I have fully stolen from Dan Savage), there is no single mentor that can answer to all your hopes and dreams as a researcher. There is a ton of amazing advice out there for PhD level students choosing labs (concisely summarized here3), and a lot of it can be repurposed for figuring out how to find mentors at the transition to independence stage. The BBSRC have also written some formal guidance for setting up mentoring programs4, and the over-riding sentiment from these sources is that a new mentoring relationship should have a clear, stated goal at the start. So take some time to reflect on why you need a mentor right now. It may be something specific, such as an application through a grants mechanism you’ve had no experience with, or it may be something amorphous such as feeling imposter syndrome or being overwhelmed by admin. Once you know why you need mentorship right now, you can figure out what would define a successful mentoring outcome; an expanded network, a grant submitted, lowered stress in committee meetings. If goal setting is something you struggle with, you can always go back to the SMART framework ( Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound).
A mentor plays several crucial roles, including guiding professional development, offering expertise, providing support, facilitating networking, acting as a sounding board, and helping mentees set and achieve goals, ultimately fostering growth and success.
Your next role is to figure out who to reach out to. Given you now know what you’re trying to achieve, you can delineate the person you need. Bear in mind that this may be someone outside your department, or even your university, depending on the need. Use your networks and talk to others about who they’ve received good support from. In the grant writing scenario, approaching someone who has been successful in the mechanism before makes sense. The imposter syndrome example is less clear, and in this case I’d think of someone I admire that gives good presentations, makes incisive comments at meetings, and treats their colleagues with respect. It’s tempting to go for someone that looks like you, but there’s only a few scenarios in which this is always the best choice. If you’re struggling with coming back from maternity leave, you’re probably going to want to talk to a person who had a baby recently. Although you may be more comfortable approaching someone from a similar background, race or sex, remember that if you’re a woman or an URM, this person is probably already very busy with service roles, and may struggle to add the bandwidth for a meaningful mentorship relationship. While this shouldn’t put you off approaching them, acknowledge this burden in your approach, and ask if they can recommend anyone who may be less committed. Given the numbers, the majority of my mentors and role models have been men, but I do have a handful of senior women who are generous with their time when I absolutely need a women’s point of view.
If you’re hesitant about approaching people directly, then most institutions now have some form of mentoring program available, and HR is probably your entry point to these. In this situation, being clear about your goals is essential, so that a good match can be made by the team. In both scenarios, either via a program or a relationship you’ve set up yourself, once you’ve been paired with a prospective mentor it is good to come up with a loose contract that both parties agree to. This way everyone goes into the relationship with a clear understanding of what will be worked towards. This contract should also include a set time-period after which the relationship will be reviewed. Most mentoring relationships can be wound down after the goal is achieved, and if the relationship is extended, it should be done with clear intent. Finally, don’t be afraid to admit if a match isn’t working. Sometimes it may take a couple of meetings to realise there is a mismatch in style or personality, and this is okay – acknowledge it respectfully and move on.
Mentoring doesn’t always need to be a super formal arrangement in the way I’ve laid out above. Sometimes as a new Group Leader, all you really need is to get in a room with some other Group Leaders and rant about admin burdens, managing students, and getting MTAs signed.
So don’t disregard community building amongst peers as a form of mentorship.
Peer mentoring can have a lot of a benefits, but is especially useful during periods of career development and transition, and has significant emotional and psychosocial benefits5. These arrangements can be formal, with themed meetings and discussions, or they can be a monthly lunch get together and chat. A lot of the time as new Group Leaders we’ve had to move to a new city, and we’ve lost the day-to-day friends we used to see and rely on for this kind of support. Peer mentoring might just get you the name of the most efficient member of the finance team, but it may also lead to career long-friendships that will increase your satisfaction at work.
With my final paragraphs, I thought I’d mention a few of my mentors and the specific transitions they helped me through. I have had many more people than this that I’ve turned to for advice over the years, and it would be impossible to list them all, but I am grateful to each and every one. Prof. Stephen Goss was the person I turned to first when I was thinking about quitting medical training, and while I can’t say I listened to all of his advice (I should have done!), it was invaluable in confirming that research was the right choice for me. To this day he likes to introduce me with a big grin on his face as “one of his most successful failures.” Once I moved to Yale as a Post Doc, Prof Amy Arnsten helped me through a difficult career moment when my PI moved to industry, laying out the options and ultimately putting me in touch with Prof Angus Nairn, in who’s lab I spent a very happy six years. I still ask Angus to read my papers and occasionally my grants. As both a formidable scientist and an excellent writer, he always provides extremely useful comments, even though they usually come at the very last minute.
When my husband moved to biotech and moved to Boston, Prof Marina Piccioto spend a lot of time talking to me about my next steps in the context of being a woman in science, with an honesty that I appreciate to this day. At Mass General, my PI Prof Steven Arnold was a generous educator in the practicalities of diagnosis and patient-centered research, and this had stood me in excellent stead as I have gone on to collaborate with companies and clinicians in my grants here in Oxford. By the time I came to Oxford, I knew how to write a decent grant, but I needed guidance through the Fellowship system and the complexities of Oxford career progression. Prof. Richard Wade-Martins has been a wonderful guide here, and always gives frank and frequently comical advice on how to deal with these labyrinthine systems. While I don’t have a formal mentoring relationship at the moment.
I have people across the Uni I turn to for various things, and there’s always someone I can find to help solve a specific problem.
These relationships, both formal and informal, have been essential for my career progression and happiness. They can also highlight that while success is very public in our field, failure is usually private, and that absolutely everyone, no matter how impressive they seem on paper, has been through substantially difficult periods and frequent rejections. Seek out these relationships, and nurture them for your benefit!
Dr Becky Carlyle
Author
Dr Becky Carlyle is an Alzheimer’s Research UK Senior Research Fellow at University of Oxford, and has previously worked in the USA. Becky writes about her experiences of starting up a research lab and progressing into a more senior research role. Becky’s research uses mass-spectrometry to quantify thousands of proteins in the brains and biofluids of people with dementia. Her lab is working on various projects, including work to compare brain tissue from people with dementia from Alzheimer’s Disease, to tissue from people who have similar levels of Alzheimer’s Disease pathology but no memory problems. Becky is also a mum, she runs, drinks herbal tea’s and reads lots of books.
Dr Jodi Watt
Dementia Researcher
Dr Yvonne Couch
Ajantha Abey
Dr Clíona Farrell