Start a social media conversation thread about mentoring, and the replies from those in the working world will get your attention. At the summary level, the responses are remarkably similar across geographies, types of business, professions, genders, age, and years of experience.

Professionals know what “mentoring” is, but more often than not, their experiences of it in practice are unsatisfying: mentoring seemed impersonal, unofficial, casual, perfunctory, ineffective, or simply absent. Frequently, the mentee was left to identify his own mentor, even in companies with other well-codified business processes.

What’s also often missing from mentoring is the “how”—as in, the “how to do it right.” I have been mentored and been a mentor during the entire span of my working life in both large and small companies. Based on that cumulative and varied experience, I can say that mentoring done right is a management activity that yields noticeably higher levels of management and employee satisfaction, engagement, contribution, and productivity. Here are seven lessons I’ve learned from the front lines of mentoring regarding how to do it right.

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