Who was Mentor? He was a guardian and teacher of the son of Odysseus during the Trojan War. The word Mentor is also Sanskrit for advisor or counselor. Do you have a role in mentorship? In advising and counseling? In being a guardian?
In life, after spending many years or decades in the military, we find ourselves in that role, whether we choose it or not; formal or not. Many, like my good friend and brother Clay, are drawn to teaching tomorrow’s leaders, our youth, and do it well. A full career serving his Nation and he continues guiding and advising our youth, to make our Nation better. Another brother, nicknamed Panda, who once told the funniest joke any human has ever told, served as a Police Officer in his community and home schools for his 4 kids. That is a mentor and guardian of our Nation and our people.
I could go on with the list of other teachers and guardians and mentors I know, for hours. I joined a disaster response nonprofit made up of mostly Veterans a little over a year ago. As a volunteer leader, my role is to mentor newer volunteers who are interested in becoming leaders in our organization. I have a volunteer leader who covers one of the four areas I cover. As a new leader, I have been mentoring him on mentoring others. We have had a ton of conversations about what our role is and how we go about it. I would like to share some of the highlights of the conversations that I think we could all benefit from, as mentors to whomever we are guardians of.
One of the critical things in mentoring is finding out what the mentee’s desired end state is. Leading them down our path because it is easier and a path we know isn’t the best way to go about it. We have to figure out where they are, where they want to go and figure out a way to get there; their path. How do we do that? We talk. We reach out, we ask questions. If you aren’t comfortable communicating, truly hearing, and wisely speaking, then mentoring might not be your thing. If you can listen to hear, not listen to respond, then this advising thing might be for you. If you can’t wait for them to shut the hell up so you can answer, yeah, this might not be your gig.
You don’t have to be the smartest person in the conversation, simply be willing to help someone figure out their path, and the steps along the way, recognize when they vary from the path, and recognize when they get to the end of their path. Having experience, patience, and understanding will be key along the way. Your mentee may get frustrated as time goes on. They may get angry if they stray from the path and waste time. They may be sad when they fail. So, your role is to motivate them, remind them of the goal, demonstrate your faith in them, and pick them up when they are down. Your role isn’t to hand them the results as much as it seems as that would be the easy way. It would provide no real sense of accomplishment for the mentee and will have ultimately been a waste of time on everyone’s part.
The best mentor is an informal, in-the-background, quiet counselor who is more just a friend and confidant than some contractually agreed upon formal manager of goals. Real mentorship is just organic and happens naturally without either person really recognizing it as a task. I have been fortunate to be part of the Command Staff on the last couple of Operations I have been on with a great mentor. She wasn’t assigned to me as a mentor, and wasn’t given the task of making me better, she just did. She jokingly referred to her style of leadership as a benevolent dictatorship. It was kind of true. She provided her Objectives and let her Staff do their job. Every now and then she would gently steer us back onto the proper path without telling us what to do. Just a friendly nudge of a reminder of the goals ahead of us. That is mentorship.
I saw on social media, the other day, someone soliciting for a mentor. I thought to respond that you really should get that mentoring from someone you trust, not a stranger. The relationship must be one of trust and honesty. Can we get that from a total stranger with possibly no common interests or basis of trust? It is possible but less probable for the likelihood of success. I am sure my friend Clay didn’t immediately start mentoring. He likely developed a trusting relationship with the kids before they trusted his sage (read old) advice. That is organic.
I think you will find that you mentor every day. Teaching your kids right from wrong. Coaching Little League kids in more than just strikes and balls. Teaching Scouts about fishing, kayaking, camping, survival, and life and chatting with other Veterans over coffee about how you deal with the struggle of transition. Some of these roles seem as if they are formal. Really, the initial development of the relationship is formal, but the mentoring develops through the trust built. So, build those relationships, mentoring when can you, be a mentee to improve yourself, and help grow our Nation!
A *very* benevolent dictatorship 😏 I learned just as much from you, SGM 😁