While most of us have had mentors at some point, neither creating mentoring programs nor succeeding in mentoring relationships comes naturally to most people. Mentoring is a focused, sustained learning and engagement method that requires planning and thoughtfulness on the part of everyone involved: the program administrator, mentors, and mentees. If you find yourself struggling to make mentoring succeed, you may want to try closing that knowledge gap by taking expert advice. Here are 5 impactful books on mentoring that we recommend for those who want to improve their mentoring skills or learn new mentoring program development and management strategies.
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What Are the Best Mentoring Books?
The best mentoring books are those that address why mentoring matters; how to get started mentoring; the best strategies for communication and problem solving; and the best strategies for mentors, mentees, and program administrators. Given that, the 6 best mentoring books are the following:
- Mentoring Programs That Work by Jenn Labin
- Reverse Mentoring: Removing Barriers and Building Belonging in the Workplace by Patrice Gordon
- Mentoring 101: What Every Leader Needs to Know by John C. Maxwell
- Surrounded by Idiots: The Four Types of Human Behavior and How to Effectively Communicate with Each in Business (and in Life) by Thomas Erickson
- The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever by Michael Bungay Stanier
- How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
1. Mentoring Programs That Work
For the program administrator that needs a detailed, technical approach to creating mentoring programs that work, Jenn Labin’s book, Mentoring Programs That Work, is a must-have. Robustly structured with visual guides, detailed chapters, and a dense index for references, this book is as close to a “how to guide” on effective mentoring program structure as you’re going to get.
This book takes you through every step of the process of launching mentoring programs, including:
- How to align your program to a tangible and measurable purpose
- How to design programs around a desired participant experience
- How to launch the program follow the design phase
- How to measure the success of your programs
- How to support participants before, during, and after program cycles
Labin’s mentoring book doesn’t just talk shop, however. It also offers interesting and illustrative stories that help ground program administrators on the value of mentoring. The book offers mentoring stories from real mentors and mentees, and breaks down some common discussions that create roadblocks to program development, such as the difference between mentoring and coaching.
This book is best for: Mentoring program administrators
Available from: Most places books are sold, including Amazon and Barnes and Noble
Available formats: Physical, digital (eBook), and audiobook
2. Reverse Mentoring: Removing Barriers and Building Belonging in the Workplace
First championed by General Electric’s famed CEO, Jack Welch, reverse mentoring is now a go-to DEI strategy. By pairing executive-level leaders with more junior-level subject matter experts, reverse mentoring creates a format where executives can receive social learning authentically while giving younger and often more diverse employees more visibility within the company. However, reverse mentoring can be tricky to get right. In her groundbreaking book (and one of my personal favorites on this list, especially the audiobook version), award-winning executive coach and TEDx speaker Patrice Gordon helps establish a functional framework for reverse mentoring programs.
This book takes you deep into the reverse mentoring format and is designed to help you:
- Understand why reverse mentoring is needed at your company
- How to structure reverse mentoring programs
- How to navigate complex and often uncomfortable conversations
Gordon’s book on reverse mentoring is not just all talk. She speaks from a position of authority, having served as a reverse mentor at Virgin Galactic to the company’s founder, Richard Branson.
This book is best for: Mentoring program administrators and executive leaders who are in or considering working with a reverse mentor.
Available from: Most places books are sold, including Amazon and Barnes and Noble
Available formats: Physical, digital (eBook), and audiobook
3. Mentoring 101: What Every Leader Needs to Know
John C. Maxwell, the author of many introductory books on various subjects relating to human psychology and self-improvement, provides us with a bona fide pièce de résistance of books on mentoring, explaining what mentoring is, why you should do it, and how it is done most effectively.
The Michigan-born author elaborates on the art of mentoring through four core ideas:
- Choosing the most adequate person to mentor
- Cultivating the perfect environment for self-improvement
- The practice of making others better
- And the most daunting task of all, getting started on mentorship
Like the best mentoring books, it focuses on time-tested and essential qualities necessary for developing great mentoring relationships that make a real difference in the lives of those who you mentor and your colleagues.
For any aspiring mentor, this book can be considered a bible, with every principle to be followed to a tee as one starts to grasp the essentials of spearheading a team and becoming a leader. If you’re on the hunt for the best mentoring books, don’t miss this one.
This book is best for: Mentors and mentoring program administrators
Available from: Most places books are sold, including Amazon and Barnes and Noble
Available formats: Physical, digital (eBook), audiobook, and audio CD
4. Surrounded by Idiots: The Four Types of Human Behavior and How to Effectively Communicate with Each in Business (and in Life)
A common struggle amongst all teachers is attempting to get through to people who come from entirely different backgrounds and are accustomed to different practices. Thus, knowing how to connect with different kinds of personalities and getting the most out of them is instrumental in being a great mentor and a topic worth learning through books on mentoring.
Thomas Erikson’s book Surrounded by Idiots will change the ways you interact with everyone in your life, not just your mentees. Offering ways in which you can assess the personalities of those you interact with in your everyday life, he also explains how to identify them and interact with them to ensure you’re getting the best versions of every individual.
Per the Swedish author, there are four kinds of human behaviors one will wind up coming across:
- Reds: Ambitious and commanding
- Blues: Quiet and analytical
- Yellows: Creative and social
- Greens: Considerate and reliable
Through this easy-to-remember coloring system, only small amounts of real-life practice are required to apply them to your everyday conversations and interactions.
This book is best for: Mentors
Available from: Most places books are sold, including Amazon and Barnes and Noble
Available formats: Physical, digital (eBook), and audiobook
5. The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever
Before you ask: No, mentoring and coaching are not the same thing. But as we’ve explained in a more detailed blog post, mentoring and coaching are also not oppositional. They’re within the same umbrella of engagement for learners. The attitudes, behaviors, and practices of coaching are applicable to mentors as well, which Michael Bungay Stanier makes clear in his book, The Coaching Habit.
Stanier draws on decades of experience as both an executive coach and a consultant for program development.
His book focuses on 4 important elements to great coaching:
- Getting straight to the point
- Staying on track in conversations
- Asking simple yet high-impact questions
- Uncovering the core problem with challenges to more easily find solutions
- Reflecting on the impact and effectiveness of your coaching strategy
This book takes the approach that active listening is a much better trait for coaches than simply barking orders and directions and expecting results. Readers should be prepared to have their assumptions on communication challenged at best, or completely upended at worst (which might also be best).
This book is best for: Mentors and mentoring program administrators
Available from: Most places books are sold, including Amazon and Barnes and Noble
Available formats: Physical, digital (eBook), and audiobook
6. How to Win Friends and Influence People
As a mentor, certain traits and skills will ensure you’re understood by your mentor or become a better mentee, such as:
- Commanding the attention of others through your words and actions
- Being someone easily liked
- Making others receptive to your feedback
- Cultivating a productive team
This is what you can learn in this book, one of the best mentoring books and best-selling books of all time. Dale Carnegie gives a masterclass on how to obtain anything you want. This can all be done when business environments are more cut-throat and demand more from their employees than ever.
Although the book was published over eighty years ago, there are many ideas that are still considered relevant today. Carnegie dishes out secrets for influencing and handling people, making others become appreciative of you, your thinking and feedback, and dealing with criticism.
If you’re looking for a more modern version of this same exact book, How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age was published in 2011. This takes into account the roles that technology, social media, and the internet play in constructing relationships.
This book is best for: Mentees and mentors
Available from: Most places books are sold, including Amazon and Barnes and Noble
Available formats: Physical, digital (eBook), audiobook, audio CD
Reading Books on Mentoring Is Only the Beginning
Reading mentoring books is a good practice to educate yourself. The next step? Applying what you’ve learned. If you’re a mentee or mentor, that could mean switching your approach in your existing mentoring relationships or seeking out mentoring programs at your organization to try your new skills on for size.
For administrators, these mentoring books may help you improve your strategies for launching, matching, engaging, and measuring your mentoring programs. If so, you’ll also need the right tools to make sure you do all of those successfully and prove the value and ROI of your programs.
MentorcliQ’s mentoring software was purposefully designed to make your life easier on all fronts. From building new programs to streamlining mid-cycle programs, MentorcliQ allows you to automate matching, get instant feedback on engagement, and visually measure participation and results.
Contact us today to get a detailed view into how MentorcliQ leads to an average 50% reduction in employee turnover.
