? Reverse Mentoring: The Silver Lining ?

“Staying Relevant” is Mature Leaders’ top priority and embracing the fact that young generations are technologically agile and skillful is the key to ‘master relevance’ for senior leaders. This was my key takeaway from the speech of Mr. M Anis Ud Dowla , the Honorable Chairman of ACI Limited in an event couple of days ago. This reminded me a key concept that I love and from which I have been greatly benefited since the beginning of my career both as mentor and mentee.

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Reverse Mentoring also known as “upward mentoring”, describes the process of a senior employee formally learning from a junior colleague. As a concept, it aims to encourage professional relationships regardless of rank and seniority.

Reverse Mentoring enables people in senior positions to learn from and understand issues from the perspective of people in less senior roles from under-represented groups. At the same time, less senior people are exposed to new ideas, experiences and networking opportunities. To make any mentorship effective and efficient we need to remember the four pillars of mentorship: trust, respect, expectation, and communication.

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The deepest fear for a successful senior leader is “the fear of losing relevance”. We see numerous examples around us which refrains capable leaders from grooming successors and facilitate graceful transitions. This can be easily addressed with “Reverse Mentoring” in terms of understanding the evolving technology, innovations and integrated intelligence.

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From my numerous experience I would like to share two examples-

- For business analytics, logical reasoning and ERP dynamics M M Ahsanur Rahman has been reverse mentoring me for years.

- Surayya .Siddiqua has been reverse mentoring me since 2020 on local leadership landscape, marketing insights, growth strategies and networking for higher purpose.

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Let’s embrace the abundance of knowledge around us regardless of social & professional hierarchy to stay relevant in this fast paced era.

- Dipesh Nag

December 26, 2023