# Career Mentoring- Managing Issues ## **Barriers to an effective mentor/mentee relationship** **Most barriers to effective mentoring stem from:** * Personality issues * Lack of awareness of the roles of the mentor and mentee **Common barriers include** * Poor mentor/mentee matching * Mentor or mentee dissatisfaction about the way the mentoring is conducted * Unrealistic expectations about what mentoring can achieve * The lack/blurring of boundaries in the mentor/mentee relationship **Avoid these verbal barriers to communication** * **Moralizing:** Making judgments about a mentee’s behavior, including calling it right or wrong, or telling them what they should or should not do. * **Arguing:** Disagreeing with instead of encouraging the mentee. * **Preaching:** Telling the mentee what to do in a self-righteous way. * **Storytelling:** Relating long-winded personal narratives that are not relevant or helpful to the mentee. * **Blocking communication:** Speaking without listening to the mentee’s responses, using an aggressive voice, showing impatience, showing annoyance when interrupted, or having an authoritative manner. * These behaviors often lead to the mentee feeling down, humiliated, scared, and insecure. As a result, the mentee may remain passive and refrain from asking questions, or distrust the mentor and disregard his or her recommendations. * **Talking too much:** Talking so much that the mentee does not have time to express themselves. As a mentor, it is important not to dominate the interaction. **Challenges facing your mentee may include:** * Being more time efficient * Lacking confidence in their tech skills or English * Having low self esteem * Having little or no work experience in UK * Having little knowledge of tech work culture * Low level of English reading, writing and speaking We can help you to overcome any barriers you may encounter. Speak with your City Coordinator or the Head of Personal Development as soon as any issues arise. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://personal-development.codeyourfuture.io/volunteer--roles-and-training/career-mentors/career-mentoring-managing-issues.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.