Mentors and mentoring

Let’s talk about mentoring.

There is no shortcut to success. Similarly, there is no quick way to producing a good leader. Famous author and educator Warren Bennis puts it this way: ‘You can’t put a person in a microwave and out pops the “McLeader.” It doesn’t happen like that. Leadership evolves.’ That’s why legendary Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, spent a large portion of his time developing GE’s leaders. And it’s why his successor, Jeffrey Immelt, continues to do so. How much time do you spend on it?

Many business companies today are in a bind. Their Baby Boomer Generation executives have retired, their Baby Buster Generation executives are availing of the early retirement packages, and business owners realize they have a very shallow bench. Many of the Generation X executives are not even willing to accept the challenge of promotions - maybe because they have not been trained, but mainly because they have never been mentored.

Socrates mentored Plato. Plato mentored Aristotle. And Aristotle mentored Alexander the Great. Christian Dior mentored Yves Saint Laurent (YSL), while Anne Klein mentored Donna Karan (DKNY), and Ralph Lauren mentored Vera Wang. Mentors often times produce prodigies who turn out to be even more successful than themselves – and this makes mentors real proud.

A healthy mentor-mentee program brings tremendous benefits. Both parties, more or less, want the same six things: challenge, responsibility, trust, reward, learning, and opportunity to have fun while achieving all those things. Both mentor and mentee are challenged to commit to achieving all those things together. Both mentor and mentee learn, because while the mentor passes on his learnings to the mentee, he is challenged to do so effectively. Together, mentor and mentee learn what works and what doesn’t. And so both parties benefit.

Most companies have coaching programs. However, they have not seriously looked into the potential of a mentoring program. A coach-student relationship is required, but a mentor-mentee relationship proves valuable.

In a coach-student relationship, the coach drives the relationship. Meanwhile, the mentoring-mentee relationship is strictly voluntary and is mutually driven, requiring good chemistry.

The coaching program is specifically targeted to certain skill set areas. Meanwhile, the mentor-mentee relationship approach is holistic.

In a coach-student relationship, coverage is short-term. But in a mentor-mentee relationship, it is usually long-term. Based on these differences alone, one can already surmise that producing future leaders would be more viable through a mentoring program rather than the traditional coaching program.

I am a product of someone’s mentoring. Every time I run my public seminars on leadership, key executives from different companies representing different industries would credit their current or former bosses for shaping them and forming them to be the leaders that they have become. Whether you would admit it or not, you and I are recipients of someone’s mentoring.

I have also mentored a few. And these few are doing very well.

We all need to be mentored by someone, and we all need to mentor someone as well.

Jesus Christ mentored only a handful of people, but Scriptures itself say that these mere handful of people turned the whole world upside down.

How about you, who is your mentor? And are you mentoring someone?

I really hope you are. 

(Develop your leadership skills! Francis Kong will be the lead trainer for the Dr. John Maxwell’s “Developing the Leader Within You” leadership program this June 29-30 at the EDSA Shangrila-Hotel. For further inquiries, contact Inspire Leadership Consultancy Inc. at 632-6872614 or 09178511115.)