What Makes a Great Mentor?

Seventy-seven percent of female mental health practitioners who responded to a recent SimplePractice survey agreed mentorship programs are critical to their career success.

A great mentor can help you build your practice, achieve your professional goals, and become a better therapist.

That said, not all mentors are created equal. Mentorship relationships work best when you’re paired with a mentor or mentee, who’s well-suited to your individual background and needs.

So, what makes a great mentor—and how do you find the right mentor for you?

What Are the Qualities of a Great Mentor?

First things first: before you begin the search for a mentor, you need to know what you’re looking for.

U.S.-based mental health practitioners who responded to the February 2023 SimplePractice survey said personality fit, shared specialty, and educational background were key factors when choosing mentors.

While there can be a variety in types of mentor and mentorship style, great mentors share a few key traits, qualities, and characteristics to look for, including:

1. A Desire to Mentor and Share Knowledge

For someone to be an effective mentor, they have to actually want to mentor other people.

Great mentors have a real desire to share their knowledge, experience, and insights—and use them to help other people grow in their careers.

There are plenty of practitioners who have the experience and skills to be a solid mentor. However, they may not have a desire to leverage their experience and skills to help other practitioners grow professionally.

2. Relevant Experience

A career mentor can be a huge support in getting from where you are in your career to where you want to go. However, sometimes in order to do that well, it’s helpful if they have a similar background in their education or specific expertise.

You may want to find a  mentor whose background and experience aligns with yours.

Additionally, you may want to find a mentor who has achieved a goal that is important to you or who is working through a challenge you are facing—whether that is managing the time commitment of supervising pre-licensed therapists, expanding their solo private practice into a small group practice, or maintaining balance in running a private practice while caring for a family.

A great mentor who has grappled with some of the same challenges you are facing in your life and career may be able to leverage their experiences and learnings to help you navigate some of those challenges.  

For example, if you’re a new therapist and your goal is to build a private practice, you’re going to want to target a mentor who’s built a thriving practice of their own. 

Or, if your goal is to specialize in a certain therapeutic treatment approach, like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing  (EMDR), you may consider seeking a mentor with significant experience with that specific treatment approach or therapeutic modality.

3. Great Listening and Communication Skills

Great mentors know communication skills—including sharing ideas and actively listening—are crucial keys to effective mentoring. 

If you’re struggling with a decision in your private practice (for example, how to to promote your practice, how to get paneled to accept insurance, or how to handle a client issue), they know what to ask in order to help you get support or navigate through thorny issues.

If you’re overwhelmed, or stressed, or you need to vent, your mentor should be able to actively listen and hold space. 

And, along those lines, if there are areas where you are seeking to grow and develop, your mentor should be able to deliver honest feedback in a way that feels encouraging, not discouraging.

4.  Personality and Identity Fit

Eighty-three percent of mental health practitioners who responded to SimplePractice’s survey said personality fit is most important when searching for a mentor. 

In fact, forcing a mentor relationship is one of the common mentor pitfalls.

The data also demonstrated that identity, including racial and ethnic identities, matter in mentorships.

Half of all practitioners participating in the survey reported identity is important when selecting a mentor. Additionally, more than half (65 percent) of all BIPOC respondents said identity is important in choosing a mentor, and a majority (83 percent) of Black respondents said identity is important in a mentor. 

“My mentorship partner and I really bonded because we know how hard it is for women of color to find the support that we need,” said therapist Prerna Rao, MA, LMFT of Valeri Trezise, LMFT, EMDRIA AC, and CEO at Be Still Psychotherapy. “There are not a lot of women of color who are therapists, and I think our relationship is one of the reasons why we’re each able to impact our clients so much.” 

Rao and Trezise pointed out in their interview with SimplePractice Pollen that their experiences as women of color also show up in family dynamics and other interpersonal relationships as well. 

While a white therapist from a different familial background might advise the importance of boundary-setting and self-advocacy, Rao and Trezise explained that this approach may not work the same way in families of color. 

“There’s a hierarchy in Hispanic culture,” Trezise said. “We don’t just go in and set boundaries.”

5. A “When One Succeeds, We All Succeed” Attitude

Unfortunately, there always seem to be some people who view other people’s success as a threat.

For example, a therapist with an established practice might see a new therapist opening a private practice in town and worry that the newer therapist is going to create increased competition for local clients.

Practitioners with this point of view will not make great mentors.

The best mentors are people who view success as an unlimited resource—and who believe that helping others succeed ultimately means more success for themselves as well.

6. Concern for All Aspects of Your Life—Not Only Your Job

An effective mentor will recognize that no matter how much you love your job, you’re a lot more than just your profession or practice. 

You should feel comfortable sharing personal milestones alongside your professional ones. Your mentor should be genuinely invested in your holistic growth, not just your career ambitions. 

7. Time and Availability 

A therapist or practitioner may have the desire to mentor other practitioners, and they can have all the qualities needed to be a great mentor. However, if they don’t have the time, energy, or availability to be a mentor (for example, because they have a new baby or a completely full practice—and extremely limited downtime outside of work due to family commitments), they’re not going to be the right mentor for you right now.

A great mentor understands mentoring is an investment in another person—and if they wish to be a mentor, they need to currently have the bandwidth to invest in the mentor/mentee relationship.

What Does a Good Mentor Do? 

While all great mentors will share the qualities above, how they actually mentor people will depend on a variety of factors—including their industry.

For behavioral health therapists and health and wellness practitioners, there are a few things a good mentor should do in a mentor/mentee relationship. 

Depending on where you are in your career and what you’re looking for in the relationship, your mentor could:

Listen and Provide Support

Being a clinician can be hard. Mentors often act as “emotional sounding boards,” listening when you need to vent, talking through issues, and offering support. Because who can understand the challenges of being a private practice clinician better than another practitioner?

Empower You to Reach Your Goals

No matter how much you may love working with your mentor, the idea is that you’ll eventually feel confident enough to move on from being mentored, and potentially move on to mentoring other practitioners.

 A good mentor won’t simply give you all the answers, but they can provide the support and expertise to help you solve problems and make progress on your own. 

Share Tips on Running and Building a Practice 

If you’re just getting started with launching your private practice and your mentor has already built a successful practice, they may offer insights that give you inspiration in getting your practice off the ground. Plus, they can give you tips on how to make sure administrative work, such as scheduling and billing, run smoothly once you start growing your clientele.

Offer Guidance on Navigating Client Issues

While you can’t break client confidentiality (except in the cases where therapists are required by law to break client confidentiality), anonymously talking through client challenges with a mentor can help you gain insights into how to approach the issue and provide your client with the guidance and support they need, similar to SimplePractice’s Ethics Consult advice column.

Help You Build Your Network

 If  your mentor has a large number of professional connections, they can also help you build your network—for example, by introducing you to fellow clinicians or connecting you with a therapists’ process group.

Guide You to Help Avoid Burnout 

Work-life balance can be a real challenge for clinicians in private practice. Burnout has been increasing among practitioners.

A mentor may share their insights on how to juggle your professional life and personal life—and keep burnout at bay without sacrificing patient care.

Grow Your Practice—and Career—With SimplePractice

To support practitioners in connecting and finding mentors, SimplePractice launched a new mentorship pilot program to help pair health and wellness mentors with fellow practitioners seeking mentorship.

And, when it comes to building and managing your practice, another tip that can help you level-up and simplify your administrative work is using a practice management system like SimplePractice.
The preferred practice management software for more than 185,000  practitioners, SimplePractice has all the features you need to effectively run your practice—including billing, scheduling, insurance, and a secure client portal—all combined in one easy-to-use platform.

Experience how SimplePractice can help you more effectively build and manage your private practice: Sign up for a free 30-day trial today.