When the ideal mentor has a poor reputation

0:00 Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. As clinicians, we spend a decade or more as trainees learning to take care of patients. When we finally start our careers, we want to build research programs, but then we find that our years of clinical training did not adequately prepare us to lead our research program. Through no fault of our own, we struggle to find mentors, and when we can't, we quit. However, clinicians hold the keys to the greatest research breakthroughs.

0:40 For this reason, the Clinician Researcher podcast exists to give academic clinicians the tools to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. Now introducing your host, Toyosi Onwuemene. Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast. I'm your host Toyosi Onwuemene, and it is an absolute pleasure to be talking with you today. Thank you so much for tuning in. Today I'm talking about the ideal mentor with a poor reputation. Yep, the ideal mentor with a poor reputation. What do you do when you're like, this is the mentor for me, but I don't like what I'm hearing.

1:22 And this actually comes from a recent coaching session, and this question came up with one of our clients who is very interested in potentially pursuing a relationship, but they have heard a couple of things that are interesting about this mentor. So what do you do with that? And I want to say that when I think back on my own experiences, I realized that I didn't always pay attention to my inner gut feeling like I should have. I thought, no, let's just be logical about this. Clearly this person's really brilliant. They succeeded. They've had a lot of mentees. It must just be them. And so I'm here to help you not make the mistakes that I have made and just help you think about how do you strategically enter into such a relationship with your eyes wide open if you should choose to venture forward.

2:15 So I'm going to talk about seven reasons, well, seven things you should consider, seven things you should consider when you find the ideal mentor who has a poor reputation. Okay. The first thing you want to know is you want to take everything you hear very seriously. Now take everything you hear seriously. I didn't say believe everything you hear, right? There are always many sides to any story. So don't believe everything you hear, but take what you hear seriously. Take what you hear seriously, especially if it's a reputation that's been built, right? It's one thing if one person said, eh, I had a bad experience. It's another thing if people are like, no, no, no, no, no, this is a consistent thing.

2:57 And you now have to do due diligence to understand what are the issues at play. So you're taking it seriously, allows you to say, let me investigate. Let me make sure I fully understand what is going on. What you don't want to do is dismiss it, but you don't want to do is be so desperate that you're like, well, I can't find another mentor and this is absolutely the best and most important mentor and this person is the ideal mentor and I don't care. I'm just going to go forward. You don't want to do that. First of all, because you're not desperate. There are other mentors and even if this one is the ideal mentor, there will always be other mentors.

3:39 And so what you want to do is just take a deep breath, take your time and do your due diligence. So the first thing you want to do is take what you've heard seriously. That's number one. Number two is ask questions. Now remember I said number one, that you don't have to believe everything you hear, but you don't want to take it seriously enough to start asking questions. And so this is important. You're doing your due diligence. And part of that is going and saying, hey, help me understand this mentor's specific reputation. Help me understand what's happening. It is helpful to ask people firsthand who had an experience of this mentor. Now I will tell you that if you're in academia, many people will not tell you about their experience because they're afraid.

4:27 They're afraid of retaliation. They're afraid that it will come back to bite them. They're afraid that they might come across as ungrateful. And so if you're going to uncover the truth, you're going to want to be strategic about it. Number one, you're going to want to find somebody who actually has had the experience that is being talked about, the actual concerning experience. But you also want to create an atmosphere of safety and confidentiality so that they can share with you. Because the worst thing is to have someone show up and say, oh yeah, poor reputation. I would think twice if I were you. But that doesn't tell you anything. It doesn't tell you what happened. It doesn't tell you what the person did. But nobody owes you any explanation for why the relationship with a mentor turned sour or didn't go as it should have.

5:13 They don't owe you. You're the one who's looking for information. You're the one who's making a decision that impacts upon your career or your future. You're going to be the one to create the kind of environment that allows people to speak freely and truthfully. How might you do that? Well, for one, you want to be sincere and you want to definitely make sure that they understand that whatever they tell you is going to be held in confidence. And you want to help them understand why you need the information. I'm really considering entering into a mentoring relationship with this person or being a mentee of this person because of XYZ. And I think it's important to my career in this way.

5:54 For this reason, I really want to understand some of the things that I've been hearing and you've had a personal experience. That's why I want to really get a sense of your experience so that I can make a better informed decision about this relationship. And honestly, anybody who's been in a tight spot before with anybody, they don't want anybody else to end up in the same situation. And so they are likely to now share with you because they want to help you make an informed decision. This is the point at which people will say, look, I had to take my word for it. Maybe this was just my experience, but you want to take them seriously. And you want to ask the right questions. So you're not just asking about their experience.

6:35 You're asking about, well, what may have been the trigger? What was the thing that may have prompted it? What are some patterns that they've noticed? What are some ways in which they wish they had been able to deal with it? What were some support structures that they leaned on? You want to really ask questions. Don't just gloss over anything. You want to really get to the bottom of it because ultimately you're going to make a decision. Quality information allows you to make a high quality decision. So you want to understand exactly what's happening so you can make a quality decision. Okay. That's number two. Ask questions about others' experiences. Number three, when you go to talk to someone, you want to treat them with respect.

7:19 What do I mean? You're a respectful person. But what I mean is, sometimes you start listening to someone's story and maybe, let's use an example, maybe their English is not great and you're like, oh yeah, must be your English. Yeah, of course this person was mean to you. You don't even not speak English. That's just an example, right? I'm not saying anybody's English is bad, but you dismiss the person or maybe something else like, okay, well, this person may have shared with you that, well, this mentor was always getting on my case about finishing manuscripts on time. And you're like, oh, is that it? Well, if you weren't so lazy, he wouldn't probably have gotten on your case like that.

8:00 And then you dismiss what the person is telling you. You don't want to do that. Don't be that person who dismisses the informant because you're like, oh, victim blaming or anything like that. I'm not saying the victim is correct or the person is a victim. I'm not even saying they're a victim, but don't say, oh, that was a you problem. Or it's not likely to happen to me because guess what? If it happened to someone, it's likely to happen again. In this area, lightning can strike twice. So you want to respect the person who's giving you the information. Don't dismiss any of their concerns. Even if you feel like, well, if they had just done better, then maybe the mentor wouldn't have acted the way they acted.

8:43 Remember this is a reputation. That means it's likely happened to more than one person you want to take your informant seriously. And so treat them with respect when they share their story and they'll be more likely to share more with you. They may refer you to other people to talk with, but don't dismiss their story. Don't say it was just you. I'm going to be fine. You want to treat them with respect and give them the benefit of the doubt. Okay. Now you've gotten all this information. Number four is for you to clarify your own goals. Why is this the ideal mentor for you? What does this mentor do for you that you don't already have? And it's a really important question to ask because sometimes in academia we have this scarcity mentality where we're like, well, they could only be one mentor for me because this is the person who wrote the textbook.

9:30 Here's the thing about the guy who wrote the textbook or the woman who wrote the textbook. In general, by the time they're writing textbooks, they've become pretty busy. And if you're an early career faculty member or you're a fellow who's barely done any research, maybe they're not the right primary mentor for you. And so the question is, well, what do you need to get? If you're like, oh, I've never done research and this person's like the best, so I want to learn from the best. I'm not saying that's not a bad thing. I'm just saying that you really probably want to look for someone who's going to give you the time of day, who's really going to invest in you, spend time with you, go through your manuscripts line by line with you.

10:10 The person has written a couple of textbooks and they probably have less time. Now, they may have an ecosystem of senior graduate students or early career faculty who can help mentor you. And that's fine. You want to know that they're not going to have anything to do with you or that they're going to be hands on in your business all the time. You want to know. So you want to clarify for yourself, what do I need? And can this mentor deliver that for me? If you're early on, you're starting out in research, you don't have much experience, you need a mentor who's going to hold your hand. You do. You need a mentor who's going to encourage you, who's going to walk you through imposter syndrome, who's not going to see your first draft and lose it.

10:52 You do want that. And if that's what you need, is this the right mentor for you? So you want to be sure what are your goals. But if all you're looking for is maybe sponsorship and you just want the person to know you enough to talk you up at their next meeting, great. You know that's what you need. So you can engage cautiously. Or maybe you know that, no, in this field, this person's name is so important and needs to be on every paper I write. Okay. If all you need is the name on a paper, does that person need to be your mentor? So do you understand why clarifying your goal helps you? If this person is well known for berating women, for example, and unfortunately in academia, that behavior can be tolerated if someone's successful enough.

11:38 At least I've seen it happen. Of course, not at my institution and probably not at yours. But there's some people who are excellent in their work, not great mentors, and they don't necessarily treat people well. And so if you find out that maybe this is a mentor who berates women often and you're a woman, then you can ask yourself, well, if all I need is their name on a paper, then there's no need for me to do the weekly meetings with them where I may be at risk for this berating behavior. That's what I'm hearing about. Why don't I just meet with this person when the paper is done and ready to be sent out? And I'm like, hey, you look like the kind of guy who would give me great input. Would you like to be a co-author? Would it be fine if we can know that kind of thing?

12:19 So you just want to be clear what you're getting from the person so that you can know whether you need to enter into a full research mentoring relationship with them, whether they can just be a career advisor. You want to know. You want to understand your goals so that you can align your goals in the relationship. Now if you decide that, okay, I've clarified my goals. This is certainly the mentor for me. This is absolutely the right person. Then you want to do number five, observe their interactions with others. Now this is so important. And I think a lot of people don't do this. They say, well, other people's experiences don't matter.

13:00 I'm different. I'm the unicorn. There's no way this thing that happened to them, they yelled at you. Yeah, that's because you are such a scaredy cat. You want to just observe and just see, okay, okay. And the way this person talks with others, how are they behaving? You want to find them when they're stressed and you want to know how are they behaving. You want to find them when they're like, you know, in the challenging times is when you want to really observe someone. So that means if you're going to observe someone, you've got to give it enough time to really observe them at different, you know, in different modes so that you know you've seen them when they're stressed.

13:43 You know, you've seen them when they're angry, when they're hungry, when they've been frustrated. You want to see them as much as possible in their interactions with others so that you can judge firsthand for yourself what this behavior looks like, right? So that's really important for you so that you can judge what the behavior looks like, okay? So observe their interactions with others. Make sure you have a clear picture. So don't just say, I'm just going to observe their interactions with men. It's like, no, no, no, this is a woman berating problem. You're going to observe their interactions with women too. So you want to observe their interactions with everybody. You also want to, even if they're like their problem is berating women, you want to observe their interactions with men. Well, if they treat women this way, how do they treat the men?

14:25 And maybe you'll uncover there that, you know, that's just how they treat everybody, which is not a good thing, but still may be helpful to know. Or you might find out that, oh, I get it. I get it. It's just, men are treated differently. Got it. So you want to observe. And there is, I mean, you know, he's being deceived by your eyes because maybe you'll observe and the person will be beautiful and kind to everyone in public, but it's really in the dark secret places or in the quiet of their office that they unleash their, you know, Frankenstein. It's possible. So that's why you want to observe in as many settings as possible. Okay. Especially with other witnesses so that you're not by yourself with this person.

15:06 Okay. So observe their interactions with others. Okay. You've observed their interactions. You've asked questions. You're clear about your goals. You're now like, okay, let's say to your mentor, I'm going to ask this person to be my mentor. It's like, okay. If you're going to go in, let's clarify the rules of engagement. What do I mean by that? Okay. So you've heard that this person, especially when they're in a room alone with you may start to get to yelling, right? So you want to be clear about, well, I know what circumstances, are we going to be alone together in a room such that you feel comfortable yelling, right? Maybe you just have group coaching, a group mentoring meetings where you're like, okay, me and the postdoc will go into the meetings together.

15:51 So you always have a witness and it makes it less likely that this is going to be berating happening in front of someone else, right? So you want to be very clear about how you're going to engage with this person. Maybe you found this person who looks, you know, is a little bit handsy. You're like, okay, how do I make sure that I maintain sufficient distance so that hands don't touch me? You know what I mean? And so I'm not condoning any behavior as good. I'm not condoning bad behavior. What I am saying is that if you decide that even after you've heard about someone's poor reputation that you're in go forward, you just want to understand your stopping rules. And that's helpful. If this person does this, then I will. If this person does this, then I will.

16:32 You also want to be clear about like, how do you engage so that you are not put in a compromising situation that allows you to experience whatever the bad reputation thing is, right? So clarify the rules of engagement primarily for yourself. It's not so much for the other person because they are who they are. And so if they show up and they start berating you, you don't get to say, oh, wow, they're berating me. I'm upset. Yeah, no, somebody told you. And don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that people should not seek the help they need. Please absolutely do that. But if you're entering into a mentoring relationship with someone who you know expresses specific poor behavior and you knowingly enter into it, you've chosen that.

17:14 Just want to be clear that you're making a choice here. And what you want to do is say, well, if this happens, then I will. You want to be clear. You want to be clear exactly what the stopping rules are. And if possible, have accountability with that. Hey, friend of mine, I'm starting this relationship with a mentor. Yes, it is a relationship because it's really about human relationships, right? I'm starting this relationship with a mentor and I've heard that this mentor can start to yell, would you hold me accountable to make sure that if any of these happen, this is exactly what I'll do, right? I'm going to let the paper go and I'm going to go to another mentor, right?

17:55 So clarify the rules of engagement before you begin. And number seven is going with your eyes wide open, going with your eyes wide open. Now, this is not the time to have rose colored glasses and say, oh, this is the best professor in the world and everybody else must be crazy. Don't do that. You want to go in with your eyes wide open. You want to say, hmm, this person has been said to have a bad reputation in X. You want to make sure that you have the opportunity to witness them in that way so that you know what to do, right? So you want to make sure that you're not blindsided. You go in with your eyes wide open, none of those rose colored glasses. The world is rose and the people who see it as yellow or wrong, don't be that person.

18:40 But you want to be very clear. So sometimes accountability helps you be clear because you'll say, hey, can you ask me if I look sad, ask me about my relationship with a mentor or whatever it is. But anyway, at the end of the day, if you decide you're going to move forward to the mentor who doesn't have a great reputation, you want to make sure that you have eyes in the back of your head. Okay, no eyes in the back of your head. Make sure your eyes are wide open. All right, I've shared seven things to consider if you have an ideal mentor before you with a bad reputation. Number one, take what you've heard very seriously. Number two, ask questions about others' experiences.

19:20 Get informed. Number three, when informers give you information, treat them with respect. Treat them with respect. Number four, clarify what your goals are and whether this mentor actually is the mentor you need or whether you need a different kind of mentor and you only need this mentor's name. Observe their interactions with others. You want to make sure that you get to experience them in the full spectrum of when they could be upset. And then you want to clarify the rules of engagement. You want to go in with your eyes wide open. All right. So that's been a pleasure talking with you today. Thank you again for listening. And remember, if you're looking for a coach, I'm happy to be your coach. Send me a DM on Instagram or on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a better place to find me and I'd be happy to connect with you.

20:05 All right. It's been a pleasure talking with you today. I look forward to talking with you again next time on the Clinician Researcher podcast. Have a great day. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Clinician Researcher podcast where academic clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. If you found the information in this episode to be helpful, don't keep it all to yourself. Someone else needs to hear it. So take a minute right now and share it. As you share this episode, you become part of our mission to help launch a new generation of clinician researchers who make transformative discoveries that change the way we do healthcare.