To provide some context to my involvement in this discussion and to outline my foundation in mentorship, I would like to offer a brief overview of my professional journey: After completing my MD thesis at Würzburg University in Germany in 1985, I spent two years as a postdoc at Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA, and then 12 years as group leader back in Würzburg from 1987; since 2000, I have been the Director of the Oxford Centre for Clinical Magnetic Resonance Research and since 2015 Head of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Oxford, UK. In the past 37 years, I have mentored and supervised well over 100 MD and PhD (called DPhil in Oxford) students, postdocs, and clinical trainees. Many of those trainees have become leaders in their own right, at academic institutions around the world, including, among others, Würzburg, Oxford, London, Leicester, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Seattle, Cape Town, Adelaide, and Sydney. I also want to mention that this commentary refers to the role of a mentor as well as that of a research supervisor, the boundaries between which are often fluid.

No one is born a perfect mentor, and becoming one is a learning process in itself. For me, that learning started with the experience with my own mentors. I had several of them, and I learned a lot from their many strengths as well as their (very few) shortcomings. Furthermore, in a mentor–mentee relationship, the learning experience is not a one-way street, and many mentees have brought brilliant ideas to me over the years. So, always be ready to learn from your mentees!

What I describe here is based on my personal mentoring experience, and I have never read a textbook on how to be a good mentor (I am not saying that one should not, I am just describing here where I am coming from).