Dear Leader,
I trust this meets you in pursuit of wisdom.
Mentoring is a very interesting and usually complicated concept. But I’m not here to demystify it.
I’m here to share a realisation I have accepted, and that is that many young people today desire to be mentors to someone. In my research, young people like the feeling of being called a mentor or the feeling of fulfillment that comes with making an impact in the life of another.
This is a very good thing.
They like to jump on the challenge of being a mentor but what I found out shockingly is that in reality most of these people have none or less impact in the mentoring challenge they accepted and this is due to certain factors.
One of them is that they have not sufficiently been a mentee to another long enough to know that there are certain things you should know, do and be before accepting the challenge of mentoring.
Usually, you get to read a lot about what you should know before choosing a mentor, but I’m flipping the coin here to what you should know before accepting to become a mentor to someone.
As a growing leader, the desire to be a mentor is great. Keep that desire intact, but beyond desire, know-how is important.
A few tips to help you:
- A good mentor is a worthy example: When someone asks you for mentorship, it is an indirect statement that they like to pattern their life according to yours. We become like the people we admire and the models we follow. For that reason, you should take great care when accepting to become a mentor to someone. Beyond your professional excellence and skills, your character must be worth modelling.People may see you from afar and desire to be like you but when they come closer, will the desire be sustained? It is worth asking yourself before accepting the mentoring challenge as a leader. You don’t have to be perfect but you have to have a strong character.
Beginning from today, don’t be casual with your values. - A good mentor is available: People may admire you from afar but you rarely make a lasting impact through mentorship without contact. I remember the quote by Andrew Carnegie “ As I grow older I pay less attention to what men say, I just watch what they do”. This is instructive because mentorship is more practical than theory. If people are going to model your life and your leadership, they would have to do that from a close range to see what you do than from a long range just by what you say. They need some contact, access and availability from you.
Before you say yes to that mentoring request, you should be sure and committed to providing time for people to ask questions and learn from your answers. - A good mentor has proven experience: What qualifies you to mentor is experience and desire to pass it along to someone else. If you really desire to make an impact in the lives of others, you must give yourself to expanding your potential and breaking new grounds in your calling. With that, someone else can benefit from your experience.
I don’t know any successful person who hasn’t learned from more successful people. Mentors come with wisdom, understanding, knowledge and experience on a given matter and that gives them the credibility to solve problems that mentees would have a hard time solving on their own.
Do you desire to mentor others? Go for experience. Go for wisdom. Never run out of solutions. - A good mentor ultimately wants to transfer what they have: This is most important. Someone can have experience and everything and chooses to die with them. But what makes a leader is creating more leaders. A desire to mentor means you care about people. Selfish people will assist you as long as it benefits their own agenda.
A mentor is one who goes before and shows the way. Nobody is a whole chain, each one is a link. If you desire to mentor others tomorrow, ensure you are a reliable mentee today and then when the opportunity comes, transfer what you have. It’s a chain. We need each other. You need a mentor and a mentor needs a mentee. Never allow what you received from the previous generation die in your hands, transfer it to the next generation, but transfer it in a better form.
I’ll end this letter with an ancient letter a leader called Apostle Paul wrote to his mentee as recorded in the first book of Timothy
“Let no one look down on [you because of] your youth, but be an example and set a pattern for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in [moral] purity.”
You can be young and mentoring, don’t let anyone despise your youthfulness.
It all depends on YOU.
I’m always rooting for you,
The Great Owete
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