Mentoring up: Twelve tips for successfully employing a mentee-driven approach to mentoring relationships

Effective mentorship is critical for achieving professional success, influencing outcomes such as career selection and advancement, self-confidence and performance, and sense of community and fulfillment. Despite the established importance of mentorship, however, mentoring relationships can be challenging to develop and sustain. 'Mentoring up' is a concept adapted from the business concept of 'managing up' that encourages mentees to actively drive their mentoring relationships to ensure desired results. In this article, we hope to empower mentees with twelve strategies and practical steps to cultivate and maintain quality mentoring relationships, and successfully drive their mentoring relationships in a direction that serves their needs and achieves desired outcomes.