Over the years, The Mentoring Group has recommended that you participate in one role (mentor OR mentee) at any one time. We’ve believed that, especially in formal mentoring programs, concentrating and doing well in one of these roles is complicated and time-consuming enough.

Recently, we’ve shifted our thinking on the dual relationship idea. We’ve observed several people playing successful dual roles. In fact, in one robust program, almost 30% of the participants were actively engaged in both capacities.

What makes these double efforts work? What are the advantages and potential downsides? What key learnings can we take from the effective ones?

How It Works

Outside of formal mentoring programs, you can choose to serve in one or both capacities at any time. However, if you’re applying to be a participant in a formal program, you’ll probably be asked to state whether you want to be a mentee or a mentor. In some programs, you’re allowed to sign up for both. Typically, you have separate meetings with each person. On occasion, you might invite your mentor and mentee to do an activity with you such as lunch.

Advantages of Dual Roles

One individual we interviewed recently said that being a mentor and mentee at the same time was a definite plus. In her words: “Being a mentor gives me a chance to make a personal difference in someone’s life. Being a mentee helps me know the kinds of issues that mentees go through, which helps me be a better mentor.”

Playing dual roles gives you an opportunity to test the mentoring process in two different arenas at once, seeing how similar and different it works in each. As you wear two hats, you simultaneously build your mentor and mentee knowledge base and skills. Seeing one perspective and experiencing emotions that go with it helps you be more sensitive to the opposite. In addition, if your program is short of people in either category, you can fill an important gap.

Disadvantages of Dual Roles

Mentoring relationships take commitment. The Mentoring Group recommends that you spend at least one to two hours of contact time a month with each partner. If you’re a mentee, you should add another two to four hours of development activities and homework to that total. Do you have this much time and energy? Keeping track of issues, names, histories, birthdays, goals, what you’ve heard and said, and other factors can be more difficult. “Now did I hear this from my mentor or my mentee?”

If one of the relationships is particularly good and the other isn’t despite your best efforts, the contrast will stand out, and you may feel de-energized and even frustrated. If you’re a fairly novice mentee, you may not be ready to play a mentor role until you’ve been through the mentoring process at least once.

Tips for Playing Simultaneous Roles

1. Think through what you want to accomplish in the next few weeks and months. Develop your coaching and mentoring skills? Pass on what you’ve learned? Learn a difficult skill from a person who’s very good at it? Perhaps you would benefit from mentoring AND being mentored.
   
   
2. Look carefully at your availability. Be sure you have the time it takes to meet, prepare for meetings, and do the occasional spontaneous or unplanned activity. Are you “psychologically available”? That is, are you mentally and emotionally able to handle the concerns, needs, suggestions, feelings, and other factors that both a mentor and mentee can bring to you?
   
   
3. If you’re feeling pressured to take on both roles because of a program’s needs (or the earnest request of a deserving mentee), practice saying ”no” or at least “not now” if you prefer not to do it. Be a model of a person with good boundaries, and see if you can help this person find another volunteer.
   
   
4. Constantly monitor yourself in the two roles. Are you acting like a mentor when you’re the mentee or vice versa? What can you learn from what you just did with one partner to sharpen your impact on the other? What clearly won’t apply in the other situation?

Let us know how you’re handling double mentoring!

For more ideas on planning and implementing effective mentoring relationships and programs, check our Archive and Products