The Value Proposition for Becoming a Mentor
Paying it Forward in a Big Way
While we’re sure to dedicate more than one article to the benefits professional mentorship can bring to an individual looking for career advice, the benefits such a relationship can bring to a mentor is often overlooked. In this article we wanted to break down and explore those a bit.
While not meant as an exhaustive list, in this article we’ll explore how being a mentor can help you:
Gain Team Building Experience
Practice Providing Constructive Feedback
Meaningfully Grow your Network
Paying it Forward
Team Building Experience
Early in our careers, our performance was measured largely on the impact work we directly performed had on the team or organization. Our scope was narrow, and daily tasks were often made up of the “blocking and tackling” of our profession. Many organizations even came up with checklists and standard work spreadsheets that outlined what we needed to do, and when we needed to do it.
While nearly every organization needs folks who put fingers to keyboards, miles on the road, or hands on wrenches, growing and getting promoted often relies on having the ability to scale up your impact on the team. The problem is, there are only so many hours in the day to perform value added work.
Eventually, we need to start building a team around us to scale the impact we can have within our organization. Whether you’re on the manager track, or working your way up in seniority as an individual contributor (IC), the way you have a bigger impact on the whole is in developing up and coming team members who can take on the additional workload.
But building a highly effective, well performing team isn’t always easy. Rarely do teams “gel” from start to finish, meaning rarely do teams become high performing without the right leadership and support. I’m sure everyone’s familiar with Bruce Tuckman’s model for team development, even if you don’t know who Tuckman is.
During each one of the phases in Tuckman’s model, leaders coach and influence behavior. According to his research, leaders coordinate behavior during the forming phase, they coach behavior during the storming phase, empower behavior during the norming phase, and support behavior during the performing phase. We’ll be sure to publish an article on Tuckman’s research at a later date. For know, I’m simply suggesting that by mentoring others, leaders can build or sharpen the skills necessary for coordinate, coach, empower, and support behavior of team members.
Practice Cultivating and Providing Feedback
Influencing behavior requires leaders to provide feedback to others, constructively. Constructive feedback, which if often different than the feedback you might get from your parents, or a spouse, is an art. Unlike the feedback I get when I don’t fold the laundry the right away, constructive feedback is specific to the individual mentee and addresses both what they’re doing correctly, as well as any opportunities they may have in managing their performing, and achieving their goals.
Constructive feedback, positive or negative, needs to be actionable. For example, assume I’m in a 1:1 with one of my mentees, Sam. Sam is looking to get promoted within their company. Assume I have been working with Sam for the past 6 months and have a decent understanding of their performance, strengths and limitations. They’ve received a meets standards on the last several performance evaluations and in their company, and at their level, you don’t get promoted without an exceeds rating.
Through my interactions with Sam, I learned that my mentee often takes on more work than they can handle in order to impress their leadership team. I believe that in doing so, Sam has stretched themself too thin. Even when they meet all their deadlines, their work isn’t thorough or well presented. It’s the case of “you can do a lot of things, or you can do a few things really well.”
Constructive feedback in that situation might look something like: Your work ethic is impeccable, there is no doubt about that. Your willingness to take on additional work and the extra hours you have to put in to get that work done is likely noticed by your leadership. The problem you may be facing is the fact that some of the additional work you’re taking on is not directly related to the objectives you and your leadership team established at the beginning of the year. This is limiting your ability to deliver on the results you should be committed to. In my experience, individuals who are rated as exceeding standards often over-deliver on objectives their accountable for. I recommend pulling back on any additional work not directly related to the objectives you and your leaders set at the beginning of the cycle and refocus that time and energy on over delivering on the work that is related.
If my mentee was a start-up, this would be attune to Jeff Bezos’ now famous advice of “focusing on what makes your beet taste better” and leaving the rest to others.
Some advice for providing constructive feedback is:
Deliver feedback in a way that is designed to support the mentee and help them improve, rather than being overly critical of their actions. It helps to have a sense of balance in your conversations by targeting behaviors that should be sustained in addition to behaviors that need to be improved upon.
Ensure your feedback is specific and actionable. We cited an example of this above.
Ensure your feedback is consistent and timely. This is one of the reasons I personally favor a long-term relationship with my mentors. Once you find someone who can truly help you grow and develop, I would always recommend regularly scheduled sessions with that person.
Actively listen. Seek to understand before offering advice. Try and avoid making assumptions or trying to interpret a mentee’s meaning.
Always remember, the session is about the mentee, not the mentor. Share personal stories when it’s applicable in making a point, but remember that every individual is different and what worked for you may not work for them. As mentors, we try and help them find their way, not get them to do it our way.
Meaningful Network Growth
Shifting gears a little … as I write this article, I have something like 1,200 connections on LinkedIn (too many, or too few depending on whom you ask). I don’t typically connect with folks that use the platform for marketing and sales activities, so most of those connections are folks I have worked with in the past in various roles or companies. (Sorry to all those sales executives I’ve ghosted over the years.)
When preparing for this article I asked myself, how many of those 1,200 connections do I actually consider to be within my professional network? The answer is, all of them, of course. But what role do these connections play within that network?
Today, business leaders typically break down professional networks into three categories: operational, personal, and strategic.
Operational networks consist of the people who help you get through the day to day. If you’re one of those sales executives I keep ghosting, by attempting to connect with me on LinkedIn, you’re trying to expand your operational network to help you land that next sale.
Personal networks consist of people who help you develop in your career. In my last article (read it below) I wrote about the impact LTC H had on my career both in the military and now in my post-military, civilian career. He was my first mentor, and part of that personal network at the time.
Finally there are strategic networks. I argue the key difference between strategic and operational networks is a question of impact. Where operational networks help you in your day to day, strategic networks involve people who can help provide new insights, or opportunities - the big picture so to say. If you’re one of those who caught the start-up bug, for example, strategic contacts can help you explore and refine an idea for a business, or may offer (or have connections to) capital, etc. If operational networks help you address current business needs, strategic networks help you identify, and prepare for, future needs.
So back to LinkedIn. Of those 1,200 or so connections I have on the platform, the vast majority of them would likely fall into my operational network. These are folks I used to, or currently collaborate with on a daily basis. A handful of them are friends and family, which could be part of my personal network (there is after all, a social aspect to personal networks). I’m not quite sure I have anyone on that list that I would consider a strategic contact … not yet at least.
Mentorverse.io is designed to help you grow that professional network. I am both a mentee and a mentor on that platform. Mentee because I have not yet achieved everything I would like to professionally, and I’m humble enough to seek help in achieving those goals. Mentor, because I feel like I have some relevant experience and knowledge that can be of value to others.
I also plan to use Mentorverse.io to help me grow my strategic network. You never know when a simple networking session can evolve into something more. Someone you meet in a session may be a future business partner, may know someone who is interested in investing in your idea, or could help open doors you’re not even considering yet. My advice to mentors on the platform is to walk into every session with an open mind. After all, doors are easier to keep open than to re-open once they have been closed.
Paying it Forward
Finally, but likely most obviously, there is a sense of being able to pay it forward. Many of us go through our careers having had a mentor at some point along the way. But many more of us haven’t been lucky enough to find consistent mentors organically through our employers or social networks.
As a soldier, I had LTC H. But outside the military, I haven’t yet found a mentor in the true sense of the word … at least not organically. I’ve have had brilliant leaders who took the time to develop my skills while I served as their direct report (which is rare enough, I know). However, those relationships typically only last as long as that hierarchical dynamic is there. Once one of the two parties moves on, so does the leader’s developmental responsibility, naturally. Mentors are usually there for the long haul.
If you’re a manager who has been successful at developing your direct reports, or an IC with a wealth of knowledge in your domain, joining Mentorverse.io as a mentor can be a great way of paying it forward and filling the gap people like myself, and many (many) others experience. Giving back to a community can help someone feel good about themselves, can foster positive social connections, decrease stress, and boost your overall self-esteem and mental health.
A Recommendation
And in the spirit of paying it forward and professional development, I’m excited to make our first official book recommendation as part of the Mentorverse.io Substack, The Five Temptations of a CEO by Patrick Lencioni.
We’re going to be making a book recommendation on every post going forward. If you would like to purchase either the hard copy, or audiobook version of anything we recommend, we would appreciate it if you click on the links provided on this post to make the purchase. We get a small incentive through the Amazon Associates program with every purchase, which helps us continue to develop and deliver content on our various platforms.
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Lencioni’s work was first introduced to me when I was working as a Six Sigma Black Belt for a building materials manufacturer after I left the Army. His books are very quick reads, written as fables, and are highly effective at getting the point across. This was the first of his books I read, and I still reference the key learnings from it in my career today. Click on the links below to visit our Amazon Associates page and purchase either the hard copy or audio book today.
If you do end up reading The Five Temptations of a CEO, or have read it in the past, please comment on this article and let me know what you thought! And if you’re enjoying these weekly articles, don’t forget to subscribe to our Substack!
Until next week, and thanks for reading!
Great article! It was straightforward to read and clearly explained the benefits of being a mentor, like improving leadership skills and growing your network.