By Anthony K. Tjan
Mentorship doesn’t always work unless leaders bear in mind a few common principles:
- Put the relationship before the mentorship. All too often, mentorship can evolve into a “check the box” procedure instead of something authentic and relationship-based. Mentoring requires rapport. At best, the mentoring relationship should propel people to break free from their formal roles (as bosses or employees) and find common ground as people.
- Focus on character rather than competency. Too many mentors see mentoring as a training program focused on the acquisition of job skills. Obviously, one element of mentorship involves mastering those skills. But the best leaders go beyond competency, helping to shape other people’s character, values, sense of self-awareness and capacity for respect.
- Speak your optimism and curb your cynicism. Your mentee might come to you with some off-the-wall ideas, and you might be tempted to help him think more realistically. But mentors need to be givers of energy, not takers of it. Consider why an idea might work before you consider why it might not. It’s been said the world prefers conventional failure over unconventional success; good mentors should push mentees toward the latter.
- Be more loyal to your mentee than you are to your company. We all want to retain our best employees. We also want our people to be effective in our organizations. That said, the best mentors recognize that in its most noble and powerful form leadership is a duty and service toward others, and that the best way to inspire commitment is to be fully and selflessly committed to the interests of your colleagues and employees. Don’t seek only to uncover your mentees’ strengths; look for their underlying passions, too. We owe it to mentees to serve as something more than just career mentors.
Anthony K. Tjan is CEO, managing partner and founder of the venture capital firm Cue Ball, vice chairman of the advisory firm Parthenon and author of the forthcoming book Good People.