Improve how you mentor using colour energies

There’s been a real uptick in organisations talking about mentorship in the last year. And no wonder, mentorship is effective, low-cost and, for the most part, a meaningful tactic for high potential and leadership development.

But that doesn’t mean it’s always done well (or at all), and if you ask those who have been lucky enough to be part of a mentoring programme how it worked, you’ll get a lot of different answers.

It’s common for both mentor and mentee to go into the arrangement with high hopes, but oftentimes, the relationship doesn’t bring the energy or results hoped for.

This article explores why this can happen and how organisations can structure mentoring programmes to truly support their high potentials.

The role of effective communications in mentor relationships

Some say that the three C’s of mentoring are clarity, communication and commitment. We’ll zone in here on the communication part.

One of the most important qualities of this relationship is the ability to communicate clearly and effectively. The mentor typically offers new perspectives, insights and possibly connections and stretches the thinking of the mentee to help them achieve their goals, receive unbiased feedback and navigate workplace and career challenges effectively.

So it stands to reason that the mentor needs to be able to ‘get through’, read the room and gain the respect of their mentee. The mentor needs to work out the best way to frame their own experiences, perspectives and advice in a way that not just resonates for the mentee, but feels enlightening, inspiring and accessible.

But how much time and energy do we typically invest in this vital ingredient? The mentor must practice active listening, mindful communication skills and be open to the fact that the mentee may have a totally different world view and way of communicating.

The reality is that poor communication and lack of awareness about working styles and preferences can hinder mentorship progress and have a negative effect on the success of the pairing.

Whether the mentee’s goals are about their career journey, their skillset or simply confidence-building, the mentor needs to attune to how their mentee sees the world and how they like to make decisions and communicate – their ‘default style’, if you will.

Working with different communicating styles in a mentoring relationship

Understanding different communication styles and preferences are at the heart of a meaningful, effective working relationships.

It’s been proven over and over that better self-awareness and ‘others-awareness’, is the golden key when it comes to how we come across to (and are perceived by) other people.

Let’s look at potential mentoring relationships through the Insights timeless language of colour energy...

Drawing from the Insights Discovery personal profiling tool, we know that having awareness of which dominant energy both you AND your mentoring partner lead with – assuming it’s an internal mentor - is an invaluable starting point and, we believe, the foundation for a productive mentoring relationship.

Starting with clear and open communication about the type of support needed, the stage is set for understanding more about what type of approach might work best: formal or informal, directive and closely managed or collaborative and ideas-based.

Know your partner and adapt your communication style 

For mentors and mentees alike, it pays to know how the other person prefers to operate.  

A pacy, goal-oriented, quick results-driven (typical qualities of a Fiery Red approach) won’t work for someone more collaborative and exploratory (favoured by those who lead with Sunshine Yellow).

Once you’re aware of the leading - and least dominant - colour energies of the likely mentee, you can tailor the mentoring approach to leverage their strengths and address potential communication gaps or issues based on their colour preferences.

This doesn’t mean that each member of a given pairing must lead with the same colour energy. It’s about recognising that people prefer to give and receive information different ways and possibly at a different pace. This also applies to how the mentoring goals are set in the first place, not just how the learning unfolds along the way.

For example, a mentee who leads with Cool Blue energy may prefer a more structured, analytical approach to mentoring, than say, Sunshine Yellow. 
The precise details of how to improve in their areas of interest will be important to Cool Blue. For Sunshine Yellow it’ll be important not to feel micromanaged in any way.

A mentor who leans towards a harmonious values-based Earth Green approach may value relationship-building (both with the mentor and other potential connections) over gathering facts and measuring exact progress.

• For a Fiery Red-leaning mentee: Provide vision, quick feedback, and opportunities to take initiative. Set measurable goals and regular progress checks against these goals
• For Sunshine Yellow: Encourage brainstorming, positive reinforcement, and team-based activities. Values connections, new ideas and reflection opportunities.
• For Earth Green: Focus on building rapport, listening actively, and discussing the impact of decisions on others. A consultative approach may be more effective here than pacy and directive
• For Cool Blue: Offer structured learning plans, time for reflection, and clear expectations. Prioritise the how, the ‘what if’s and the what next. Process and practicalities are key.

Whatever the pairing, it’s important to schedule in time to reflect on how colour energies are impacting the mentoring dynamic and adjust as needed.

Given that one of the roles of a mentor is to provide feedback, the way the feedback delivered is important. Holding up the mirror to someone about how they come across is not always easy.  For a mentor about to provide constructive feedback on their mentee’s behaviour and its impact, choice of style and words is everything.

Similarly, how the personal development plan is crafted and reviewed will also depend greatly on communication and working styles.

Mentoring as part of being (or becoming) a leader

Some leaders will naturally become great mentors, formally or informally. Whether they actively seek a formal role or not as part of their own development, the self-awareness message remains important.

It’s useful to understand your colleagues and their preferences better, and to recognise the likely impact of your leadership style - and working style - has on others who are different to you!

The Self-Aware Leader programme is an evolution of the Insights approach to leadership development and builds on the foundation of Insights Discovery. It addresses common leadership challenges, including:

• Improving leadership effectiveness for new and existing leaders
• Helping leaders to better motivate and engage their teams
• Supporting leaders to be more valuing and inclusive of different approaches
• Giving leaders a strong sense of purpose and authenticity

This work includes the Insights Discovery Transformational Leadership, IDTL, profile (available through the Self-Aware Leader programme), which gives leaders an insight into their behaviours through the lens of eight leadership dimensions. The personalised profile contains practical tips for leaders to enhance their effectiveness in each area.

Here, we shift personality preferences from tendencies to leadership styles. Along with the knowledge that we are all unique, yet have access to all four colour energies, the IDTL helps us to realise that to achieve great leadership we must practise dialling our colour energies up and down depending on the situation. This applies to all types of working relationship, including mentoring.

The IDTL model has four manifestations. They aren’t specific to colour energy, and no one style is better or worse than another; the relevancy of each style depends on the workplace situation. The key is to be able to move between each manifestation as the context requires.  

Whether it’s formal mentoring or general leadership development that’s on your agenda for this year, developing self-awareness in your teams is an ever -important part of the equation.

To find out more about how to dial up and down different colour energies in your own work, how to use colour energies to help your mentors or identify and explore your own leadership style and capabilities, visit the website 

Self-aware leaders are more effective at inspiring and motivating their teams than their less aware counterparts. That’s why our leadership programmes start with self-understanding; helping leaders see where they excel, where they struggle and where they’re just treading water. Once this awareness is established, we guide leaders in understanding others, enabling them to nurture talent, unify teams and lead innovative, dynamic organisations.