As an effective mentor, you aim to sustain good levels of engagement, both for yourself and your mentee. Engagement enables a successful relationship for the mentor and mentee because they can be aligned on the goals of mentoring and invested in the process of achieving them. Engagement is a combination of our intellection, how we understand something, our emotion, how we feel about it, and our action, what we are doing in response to our understanding, views and feelings.
When your mentee has low levels of engagement, this is likely to impair both their attitude and actions related to the mentoring activity. It is important to understand what is causing your mentee’s apparent low engagement before responding to it. It’s also critical to stay objective, assessing the facts, rather than your interpretation of the facts. If you aren’t clear what is causing your mentee’s apparent low engagement, then an objective (facts-based) conversation based on supportive intentions about that is a good place to start.
For example, perhaps they don’t say much during conversations with you, or act upon the advice and ideas you are giving them. Once you understand more about the situation, you can decide the best way to respond in collaboration with your mentee.