Mentors help remove roadblocks to the mentee’s progress along their journey. Mentors might help mentees overcome barriers like learning specific professional skills, or building a network of people who can link them to opportunities. As a mentor, how you help remove barriers to your mentee’s progress requires flexibility on your part to stay open to a broad range of approaches.
As a mentor, your role is often to prepare the mentee for future challenges, perhaps by teaching guiding principles, or helping them build a broader base of skills, contacts or experience. When this is the case, your involvement must be guided by the intentions and goals for the assignment, in combination with your own view of what’s right to do. There is no magic formula to define exactly how you should help in situations, but by staying aware and alert - to yourself, the situation and the options - you are likely to make a better, more effective choice.