Mentoring as a Key to Self Awareness and Learning
"You learn more quickly under the guidance of experienced teachers. You waste a lot of time going down blind alleys if you have no one to lead you."Over at Wikipedia, mentoring is described as "a developmental relationship in which a more experienced person helps a less experienced person ... develop in a specified capacity." At its core, this is mentoring, and, as Somerset Maugham notes, it saves a lot of wasted time if you don't have to go down those blind alleys.
~ W. Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965), in The Razor's Edge, published 1943
The Coast Guard has a formal mentoring program; while the formal mentoring program is a good place to start, I'd like to spend a little time talking about the mentoring relationship, a place where two people can get together to share ideas and learn.
Mentoring, a relationship between a more senior person with a more junior person, can actually provide feedback, counsel, and assistance to both people involved. The classic example is a mentoring relationship between a twenty-something and a much older person. While the older person can provide counsel to the younger about career issues or education, the younger person can help the older, perhaps, with technology issues.
There are certain keys to successful mentoring. Here are a few:
* Remember that mentoring is first, and foremost, about the relationship, and relationships take time to build and grow.
* Know that any feedback or counsel you receive is meant to help you, not to hurt you.
* Quick informal get-togethers are just as important as more formal, longer sessions.
* Mentoring relationships don't have to be spelled out; often in a mentoring relationship we don't call it mentoring. Just because it's not called mentoring, doesn't mean it isn't mentoring.
* Successful mentoring relationships act as vehicles that enable people to develop the new behaviors that are necessary for change.
* The junior partner of the mentoring relationship must take an active role in setting goals and parameters for the mentoring partnership.
A mentoring relationship can be just the thing you need to help gain self awareness and learn.
I hope you've enjoyed these posts and have picked up a thing or two for your own leadership toolkit. Remember, mission excellence is nothing, and short-lived, if you're not looking out for your shipmates. May your toolkit be filled to the brim with useful tools.
Semper paratus,
~ VADM Bob Papp
