THE BEST LEADERS ARE ALSO MENTORS
When I retired from Georgetown Law Continuing Legal Education in 2017, one of the lawyer-volunteers with whom I had worked for years presented me with a framed plaque that reads “We all sit under the shade of a tree that someone else planted.”
I still have that plaque sitting on a bookshelf in my home office and I see it every morning when I enter the room. It reminds me of the gratitude I feel for all the leaders I have learned from during my career, from Ray Milkman to Vicki Jaycox to Richard Granat to the Georgetown Deans with whom I was fortunate to work..
I was reminded of the special role of mentor this week when I read a blog post by Chip Conley about mentoring. Chip is the founder and leader of “The Modern Elder Academy (MEA), which is headquartered in Santa Fe, NM and Baja, CA.
That post included a similar quote from Nelson Henderson, a Canadian farmer, who said; “The true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit.”
Chip makes a beautiful point in his blog post that “One of the sweetest joys” as we grow older is “realizing that the wisdom you’ve gathered along the way isn’t meant to be stored – it’s meant to be shared.”
He adds: “The pride comes not from teaching, but from witnessing someone else’s evolution…Mentorship is not a formal title, it’s a way of showing up with presence and curiosity.”
Chip writes that one of his own mentors, Herb Kelleher, who headed Southwest Airlines, showed him that “mentorship is less about hierarchy and more about spirit. It’s about listening deeply, offering perspective without agenda, and modeling how to live with integrity…In the end the pride of being a mentor isn’t about legacy, it’s about connection. It’s about knowing that through your example, someone else saw a wider horizon.”
This blog post resonated with me. If you read this leadership newsletter even on an occasional basis, you know that “connection” is one of my favorite words. The concept of connectivity cuts across all levels of leadership – with our direct reports, with our peers, with our own managers, and on an organizational level as well.
We need not be an “older and wiser” leader to serve as a mentor to a teammate. We can mentor younger or newer teammates as long as we have some experience, knowledge or wisdom to share with them. However, in order to create that mentoring connection, we must initially construct trust with them. People will not entertain a possible mentor-mentee relationship with us unless and until they trust us and know that we have their best interests at heart.
Once we build that trusting relationship with teammates and they give us permission to play a mentoring role, I can assure you that serving as a mentor and seeing people grow and blossom is amazingly rewarding.
And once we establish a strong mentoring relationship with colleagues, the beauty of that relationship can continue for years – even decades – long after you or the other person have left the organization where you first met and where the mentoring relationship started.
So I want to pose several questions for you today:
-Who has served as a mentor for you during your career? Have you stayed in touch with them and expressed your gratitude to them?
-For whom have you served as a mentor? Have you checked on them recently to see how they are doing?
-For whom are you serving as a mentor right now? Have you spoken with them about how you can help them grow even more?
-Regardless of where you are in your career today, for whom do you think you could serve as a valuable mentor? What is the level of trust in your relationship with those people? How could you best create a mentoring connection with those people?
As you ponder your present and future mentoring roles, please do not limit yourself to your current paying job. Think about your roles in your family and in your community. Where do you volunteer? How can you serve as a mentor in your not-for-profit organizations? Where can you best share the knowledge and wisdom you have accumulated up to this point in your life?
Mentoring is not a mandatory aspect of leadership. Some people can progress through their leadership journeys without ever truly mentoring colleagues or teammates. However, I can guarantee you – based upon my own personal and professional experiences – thar serving as a mentor can be wonderfully valuable and rewarding.
Moreover, it can produce true connectivity and lifelong friendships that bring true joy to our lives.
Who can you mentor this week? Go for it.
If you believe this content would resonate with a friend or colleague, please feel free to forward it along!
-Larry