A significant decision made by the skilled mentor should be attention to the proper timing of direct challenges to the mentee’s facts and opinions.
The mentor must be particularly alert to the timing of an intervention—especially when utilizing the confrontive approach—because the mentor is relying as much on the psychologically right moment to introduce a point as much as on the actual intellectual weight of the issue under consideration.
Similar to the idea of a teachable moment, it is sometimes nearly impossible to separate the value of the comment from the readiness of the receiver to hear it. Mentors should be careful in the important early stages of the relationship that good intentions do not unexpectedly but dramatically ...
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