What A Mentor Should Give You And What A Mentor Should Not
Starting this April, I’ll be serving as an Accompany Runner (AR) for NEDO’s NEP (NEDO Entrepreneurs Program). This position provides hands-on support for building business models, aimed at individuals and teams pursuing startups in deep tech fields. For details, see the NEP special site, but roughly speaking, it’s the role of an “experienced accompany runner.”
After receiving this offer, I found myself reconsidering what I should provide as an accompanying supporter, and what I shouldn’t. I’ve felt something similar in my past work as an advisor or consultant at individual companies. But this time I’ll be responsible for people selected through a public application process, so if I don’t set my own expectations properly, it won’t be fair to either side.
Being asked point-blank, “What exactly does a mentor do for you?” is rare. Few people ask that directly to your face. Most just carry a vague sense that expectations and reality don’t match, the atmosphere quietly sours, and they drift away. That’s precisely why the mentor side needs to sort this out themselves.
I’ve served in a mentor-like capacity at several companies, and conversely, there are a few people I’d call mentors to me. So I should be able to speak about “what a mentor is” from lived experience. But whenever I try to put it into words, every definition ends up sounding somehow hollow.
“An experienced advisor” is too idealized. “Someone who tells you the right answer” is clearly wrong. “Someone who connects you to industry networks” is part of it, but not the essence.
This NEP opportunity gave me a chance to sit down and sort this out properly, and I arrived at an answer that feels consistent to me. I want to write that down here.
What you shouldn’t expect from a mentor
It’s easier to start by sorting out what you shouldn’t expect. Getting this part wrong distorts the relationship for both mentor and mentee.
① Not someone who gives you the right answer
The general premise is that a mentor engages from a position of having more experience than the mentee. But having more experience doesn’t mean they’ve experienced everything the mentee is currently facing. Circumstances differ from person to person, and the times are different too. So if you treat a mentor as “someone who holds the right answer,” things will inevitably drift off course somewhere. This breaks down even more severely if the mentor themselves starts acting like “the one who gives the right answer.”
② Introducing connections doesn’t necessarily lead to a solution
Once a mentor has accumulated a certain amount of experience, they can sometimes help a mentee through their network. But the person they’re introduced to won’t necessarily solve the mentee’s problem. In the end, only the mentee can solve the mentee’s problem. An introduction just creates a point of contact — it doesn’t produce an answer.
③ Personal anecdotes aren’t necessarily useful as-is either
“Back when I was young, it was like this” is a story the mentor can tell with a certain pleasure. But an anecdote works only for problems with the same structure — it doesn’t work for a different one. Applying an anecdote to a situation that looks similar but is actually different can push the mentee in the wrong direction. An anecdote should be offered as one piece of reference material, not as a prescription.
Laid out this way, what a mentor actually provides looks fairly unreliable. If the right answer, connections, and anecdotes are all not necessarily useful, the question becomes what the mentor exists for in the first place.
That’s exactly why lowering expectations once is the right move. Rather than being trusted excessively, it’s better to make clear from the start that “in this sense, I won’t be useful” — that produces a relationship that functions over the long term.
What a mentor can definitely provide
So, having lowered expectations, what can be guaranteed?
- Listening closely and staying by your side
- Always being on the mentee’s side
- Not abandoning them
- Having little direct stake in the outcome
None of this depends on how much experience or knowledge you have. Will alone can guarantee it. And for the mentee, there’s hardly anyone else who offers this combination.
A boss is an evaluator, so it’s hard to speak honestly with them. A colleague is also a rival. An investor has a financial stake as a backer. Family and friends are on your side, but the scale of the worries often doesn’t match up. In other words, someone who satisfies all three conditions — being on your side, being able to actually communicate, and having little at stake — is surprisingly absent from everyday life.
A mentor is in a position to deliberately satisfy these three conditions. That’s the core value here.
If I had to sum it up in one line, the phrase that fits best is something like “an experienced older sibling who always listens as an ally.” Not excessive, not diminished.
Why this matters urgently — the reality of an executive’s loneliness
From here, this is specifically about executives and management, but the higher your position rises, the fewer people you have to talk to.
You can’t show weakness to your employees. Even less so with shareholders and stakeholders — there’s no way you can voice office complaints to them. Family and friends will always be on your side, but the scale of the concerns is fundamentally different. Bank negotiations, capital policy, layoffs, negotiating with investors, resignation talks — processing these matters seriously in an ordinary conversation with family is structurally unreasonable.
So, as a result, you end up unable to talk to anyone. The quality of decision-making drops, and it wears you down mentally. This isn’t unique to executives — it’s a structure common to anyone holding a position of a certain level of responsibility.
This is exactly where a mentor delivers value. Because they’ve experienced equal or greater crises, the context lands. Because they also know people with diverse backgrounds around them, they can respond either with “I understand” or “I know someone who understands.” And because they have little at stake, they can be candid.
Once you see this structural necessity, the question “what should you expect from a mentor” turns out to be part of a larger question: how do you design for the loneliness of executives and leaders?
The hidden benefit of listening
I want to add one more point.
A mentor’s “listening” carries a benefit that goes beyond a merely passive role.
By putting into words something they’ve never been able to tell anyone, the mentee can organize their own thinking. In other words, even without the mentor providing the right answer, they’re supporting the process by which the mentee approaches the right answer themselves.
This becomes clear if you’ve spent time in hiring interviews or coaching settings — people often only realize what they actually think once they start speaking to someone they trust. The mentor is providing that very opportunity to speak.
In this sense, “listening” is not a passive act. It might, in fact, be the point in a mentor’s job where they deliver the most solid value.
Summary — mentorship as expectation design
To sum up:
- Areas where you should lower expectations — the right answer, connections, and anecdotes are all uncertain. Don’t see a mentor as someone who gives you the answer
- The value that can be guaranteed — being an ally, listening, not abandoning them, having little at stake
- Structural necessity — executives and leaders are structurally prone to loneliness, and a mentor is positioned to receive that loneliness
- In one line — an experienced older sibling who always listens as an ally
Both as someone who has asked for a mentor and as someone who has served as one, this framing is what clicks into place for me.
Being expected too much of feels burdensome; being underestimated doesn’t sustain the relationship either. Making clear up front what I can’t do, then reliably providing what I can do — that’s the key to a mentor relationship that functions over the long term.
And this, in fact, is a design principle for trust relationships in general, not just mentorship.
As an AR for NEP, I want to approach the aspiring entrepreneurs I’ll be working with in this spirit. The right answer is something to search for together — it’s not something I already hold. But what I can provide, I’ll provide reliably and consistently. That’s all there is to it.
This piece was drafted and directed by Kuzuryu, with the writing done by AI.
Originally published in Japanese at https://clazytech.com/2026/04/1578/. Translated with LLM assistance and reviewed before publication.