Welcome, Developer 👋
For a long time, I thought mentoring meant explaining things well: clear architecture diagrams, thoughtful answers, and well-reasoned trade-offs.
If someone left a conversation saying “ah, that makes sense”, I assumed I’d done a good job.
But over time, especially as I moved into lead and principal roles, I realized something uncomfortable - most real growth wasn’t happening when I was explaining. It was happening when people felt safe enough to think out loud.
Teaching vs Mentorship
There’s a subtle but important distinction here.
Teaching is about information transfer.
Mentorship is about confidence transfer.
That idea clicked for me after reflecting on the mentorship chapter in The Manager’s Path. The book makes it clear that mentors aren’t there to direct someone’s career or hand out answers. They’re there to help someone make sense of their own thinking.
Most engineers don’t struggle because they can’t learn. They struggle because they’re afraid of being wrong in public.
When mentorship turns into pure teaching, a few patterns show up quietly:
- people wait for the “right answer”
- questions get filtered before they’re asked
- uncertainty stays hidden
- learning becomes passive
Everyone looks competent — but growth slows.
Where Real Learning Actually Happens
The most important mentoring moments rarely sound impressive.
They sound like:
I’m not totally sure this makes sense yet…
This might be wrong, but here’s how I’m thinking about it.
Something feels off and I can’t explain why.
Those moments only happen when the environment feels safe.
Safety isn’t about being nice. It’s about not punishing incomplete thinking.
What Creating Safety Looks Like
This isn’t abstract theory. It’s small, repeatable behaviour.
Don’t Rush to the Answer
When someone is mid-thought, jumping in too early often shuts them down. Let them finish — even if it’s messy.
Messy thinking is still thinking.
Ask About Reasoning
Instead of correcting immediately, try asking:
- What options were you considering?
- What assumptions are you making?
- What felt unclear?
You’re mentoring the thinking, not just the outcome.
Say “I Don’t Know” Out Loud
This matters more than most senior engineers realise.
When someone more experienced says:
I’m not sure — let’s think it through.
It lowers the stakes for everyone else in the room.
Treat Mistakes as Information
Mistakes usually point to:
- missing context
- unclear constraints
- hidden assumptions
- system complexity
If mistakes are punished, they get hidden. If they’re explored, everyone gets better.
Mentorship Is Not About Cloning Yourself
One of the biggest traps mentors fall into is trying to create smaller versions of themselves.
Same preferences. Same patterns. Same decisions.
That doesn’t build strong engineers, instead it builds dependency.
Good mentorship helps people:
- develop their own judgment
- disagree respectfully
- choose different approaches
- own outcomes
The goal isn’t:
They do it my way.
The goal is:
They can explain why they chose their way.
Why This Matters More as You Evolve
As you move into senior, staff, or principal roles, your leverage changes.
Your impact is no longer mainly:
- the code you write
- the problems you personally solve
It’s:
- how others think when you’re not in the room
- how early risks surface
- whether people feel safe raising concerns
If people only speak when they’re confident, problems show up late. If they can think out loud, problems surface early — when they’re cheaper to fix.
That’s not soft leadership. That’s operational leverage.
A Question I Try to Ask Myself
Whenever I’m mentoring someone, I pause and ask:
Am I trying to sound smart — or am I creating space for them to think?
If I’m doing most of the talking, I usually have my answer.
Closing Thought
Mentorship isn’t about having the best explanations.
It’s about creating conditions where learning happens naturally.
If someone walks away feeling:
- more confident
- more curious
- less afraid of being wrong
You did the job — even if you never gave them a single answer.
That’s the kind of mentorship that scales.
See you in the next post. Stay focused, Developer.