“Listening to hear instead of listening to respond is (and always will be) the only way to avoid the conversational trap of believing that you are aligned …”
By Josephine Waugh -
Mentoring is not just an act of altruism; it’s a powerful way to build professional identity, leadership and renewed purpose.
We usually talk about mentoring as something that mentors give. They give time, guidance, perspective, the benefit of experience. In this post-pandemic age of reduced personal interactions and increased reliance on artificial intelligence, the benefits of having a mentor in a people-focused profession are largely undeniable, and yet, we rarely pause to consider what mentors receive in return. This is strange as most of us mentors will know that mentoring can be one of the most rewarding ways to sharpen leadership, deepen self-awareness, and reconnect to the passion we hold for our profession.
Though I was an enthusiastic recipient of mentorship throughout my tertiary education, I didn’t fully understand the bidirectional nature of mentoring outcomes until I myself started to mentor. Within two months of connecting and working with my first mentee, I was struck by the shift and the growth within myself.
One of the first shifts was in my thought processes. Previously, when a mentee brought me a question, problem or frustration, I was drawn to the quickest solution. I would immediately move into repair mode. But, when I took a step back, I realised I was managing and not mentoring, and that I needed to reposition myself as a sounding board. I began asking myself: what else might be happening here? What assumptions are sitting beneath this concern? My role was not to fix the issue, but to help this person see it more clearly, so that they could grow into their ability to find solutions themselves. Once I started doing that, my ability to zoom out, to think creatively, and to coach and motivate rather than instruct improved exponentially.
That change in thinking matters. Legal professionals are trained to identify issues, weigh risks, and move as quickly and efficiently towards resolution as is practicable. Those skills are essential. Yet mentoring invites a different kind of professional discipline: the discipline of reflection. It requires us to slow down, consider context, understand the information hidden within ambiguity and recognise that the most useful answer is not always the first to appear.
It also strengthens the ability to ask good questions, which is quite possibly the go-to tool of all good solicitors. Not asking performative questions, or questions designed to lead someone to the answer we have already chosen, but genuine, curious questions. Questions that open up the issue rather than close it down, and which lead us to better outcomes than we originally thought possible. And, even more poignantly, questions that reveal deeper and more meaningful insights into ourselves.
Josephine Waugh, Wellbeing Officer, The Law Society of NSW.
This ability to ask good questions is necessarily followed by the development of truly effective listening. I found mentoring the perfect context in which to practice and hone my active listening skills. It helped me clarify meaning, encourage reflection and create space for the mentee to examine their actions, decisions and values. Listening to hear instead of listening to respond is (and always will be) the only way to avoid the conversational trap of believing that you are aligned when, in truth, you have been thinking and moving in parallel and merely waiting your turn to voice misaligned thoughts.
This form of listening extends well beyond mentoring. It makes a person more attuned to nuance, more thoughtful with advice and more effective in relationships where trust matters. These are crucial skills for all solicitors.
Perhaps most significantly, mentoring has shaped the way I understand leadership. The mentor is not there to manage a project, allocate work or drive an outcome. The role is to support, encourage, challenge and help another person draw out their own judgement. That distinction is key.
It allows us to counterbalance one of the riskiest habits of the legal profession: confusing perfectionism with professionalism. In law, accuracy, precision and careful work matter. But it is easy to confuse high standards with a level of perfection that becomes paralysing. Mentoring reminds us that growth does not come from never making a mistake. It comes from learning how to reflect, respond, recover, and apply judgement across different situations. That is what builds real capability.
This lesson has shifted my understanding of leadership from achieving an outcome, to helping others become comprehensively capable. And when that happens, mentoring stops being only a generous contribution to someone else’s career. It becomes a better way to practice leadership. And for those solicitors looking not just to exist within the legal profession but to engage with and contribute to it, demonstrating this kind of leadership – this kind of mentorship – is paramount.
The Law Society of New South Wales offers a Solicitor Mentoring Program for legal professionals looking to engage in mentoring and peer connection. This is a peer-to-peer program designed to create a safe platform for solicitors to support each other through healthy, structured mentoring relationships.
For more information, please contact Mentoring@lawsociety.com.au.
