The Importance Of Having A Mentor And Becoming One

I would argue and make the bold claim that current successful leaders did not get in their place on their own.

I am convinced they had someone, some group, some person, some influence in their life that helped them achieve what they’ve achieved if you consider them a great leader.

Mentor was not even a word in my vocabulary growing up. It didn’t exist. I think I have shared before I came from a solid middle class, maybe even lower middle class.

My dad was a state trooper. We weren’t rich by any stretch of the imagination, but we weren’t poor either.

The point being, I never thought about mentorship outside of those “put in my world automatically” people, whether it be my parents, my grandparents, my older brother, the teachers of the classes that I was in in public school, etc.

I never thought about the need for it. It wasn’t something that I placed a priority on. It wasn’t something that I even understood, to be frank with you.

However, I do remember after I became an officer (I was commissioned in the Air Force), someone somewhere in the Air Force hierarchy realized, recognized and did something about the fact that there was a lack of mentorship in the Air Force.

The Air Force has some phenomenal leaders, just like every military branch does. That’s just the way it is. They want to serve their country, they find their calling in that and they greatly enjoy it.

They also understand however that they age and they will eventually leave the Air Force. It is their responsibility to bring up the next generation to impart their knowledge, to help the younger generation not make the mistakes they did.

The opportunity to teach the younger generation, somebody who is less experienced than you, to mentor them.

There are all kinds of different mentors. It doesn’t have to be just in the business sense. It could be in a relationship sense, it could be in a spiritual sense, it could be in all kinds of different ways.

The main point is that it’s a trusted advisor that you look to for help and guidance. In the Air Force, they created a mentorship program as part of our mentoring and a way to get people connected.

I have no doubt the intent of it was pure. However, there were so many problems with it from the sense that to have a mentor and to trust a mentor, you have to have some sort of relationship with that person.

It doesn’t have to be necessarily in depth, but there has to be some level of mutual trust, respect and understanding of what the relationship is built around.

Even if you hire a mentor, like a business coach or a relationship coach, there is some level of trust that you’ve entered in with them. You start that relationship on a basis of trust.

The problem with the Air Force rollout of this program was there just wasn’t that, it was: here’s this program, sign up for it, and you got attributed to someone instantly.

Ultimately, it needs to come down to somebody that’s in your sphere of influence. Mentorship is so personal. It can’t be done by an app. I guess you could do it over the phone, but not between strangers.

I failed time and time again as a result of not understanding this mentorship concept and this mentorship importance. I even failed to be that mentor to the others in the Air Force too.

Certain industries are seeing mentorship as competition. Especially if you’re not necessarily in the same office. For example, a senior broker may see it as competition for mentoring a younger broker.

However, there is this concept that top dogs don’t worry about competition. They are more worried about collaboration than competition, and it’s really just the people that are fighting at the bottom for the scraps that are worried about competition.

A mentor is somebody that challenges you. They’re the ones that help you see your potential, even when you don’t necessarily see it yourself. They’re the ones that will brainstorm options with you.

I hope that you recognize that if you are currently missing the opportunity to be a mentor, it’s a thing you should not toss aside because it’s an opportunity for growth as much for the mentor as for the student.

A rising tide raises all ships and makes everyone better and more satisfied.

Mentors hold you accountable. They are monitoring what you are doing to make your goals happen. They provide that education that you may be lacking, especially if you have a technical job where they have learned tricks of the trade.

Mentors also serve as motivation. You see something in them that you want to emulate. They lend their advice to you in a manner that you trust it.

If you’re somebody reading this that doesn’t have a mentor, seek them out. Figure out in your industry who is the one that you really want to be like them, that their success is something to aspire to, or whatever that may be for you.

You may be in that leadership position and you are thinking that you are not really doing anything to raise the next generation. Think about how you can become that person that challenges, leads, holds accountable, educates and all those things that a mentor would do to a younger counterpart of yourself.

Have you ever had a mentor that changed your life? If so, what were the key elements that this mentor taught you or made you do?

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