Why Mentors Matter

Every profession offers different paths to advancement. In academia, we have taken the path pretty much as far as it can go. We are tenured full professors, and we each chair our respective academic departments. We're well published in academic journals,* and we've hired and mentored plenty of other Ph.D.s through their early careers.

We both think mentorship is vital to success in any career. In fact, even though we’ve been professing for a while now, we still have so much to learn. We are still mentorable!

We were reminded of this on a recent October afternoon with a colleague who makes our accomplishments look pretty meh. Dr. June Cotte from Ivey Business School took us under her wing for a few hours at a conference in Washington, DC. The time and attention June gave to improving two of our early-stage projects was nothing short of inspirational. In fact, you can think of this whole post as a love letter to people like June and the difference they make in the world.

Recent research suggests that the influence of good mentoring goes way beyond improved vocational performance, although it certainly does that. Good mentors help mentees to feel safe, supported, and seen through feedback (both positive and critical) and other cues. This is how effective mentorship contributes to a sense of psychological safety.

Mentees also enjoy a stronger sense of belonging and community, which is why having a good mentor is especially important early in our careers. Effective mentors clarify goals, which can strengthen and renew our sense of identity and purpose. They do this by helping us to imagine bigger possible futures. By helping us learn through the struggles and the missteps, mentors build resilience, and resilience is what gets us through the next hard times.

The net effect of good mentoring is reduced anxiety and improved life satisfaction, which is essential for lasting happiness. In short, mentors help us to grow toward our best, most joyful, and self-actualized selves.

Great mentors speak of the importance of sending the elevator back down once you reach the top. They approach mentorship with a generous heart, and we love them for that. The added bonus here is that mentoring relationships are good for the mentors, too!

We learn how to lead by leading; we learn how to communicate by communicating. So mentoring offers a great way to build those skills. As mentors, we strengthen those leadership muscles and expand our capacity to lead. Our ability to engage more broadly throughout the organization grows, too. This benefits the whole enterprise.

As mentors ourselves, we know that the odds of making an impact greatly improve when some thought is put into matching mentors with their mentees. Ideally, both parties should see something of themselves in the other. This builds empathy and trust and shortens the developmental runway.

Additionally, mentoring builds confidence, that sense of self-efficacy that comes from taking someone under your wing and seeing them flourish. And with this comes a greater sense that the things we do matter.

If you want to experience the benefits of mentorship yourself, but just aren’t sure where to start, we found a great resource (pun intended). It’s called the GREAT mentorship model, and it breaks down where to focus as a mentor. It was developed to help support students, but it easily translates beyond that. Here are some suggestions to try:

• Give opportunities and open doors.
• Reach out to help your mentee identify their strengths and achieve their goals.
• Encourage them by serving as a positive example.
• Advise each person as an individual.
• Train for independent thinking.

In addition to the GREAT model, we have learned that setting clear expectations up front makes a big difference as well. For example, we make it clear to college seniors that they own their career search. We will coach them on strategies and behaviors that will lead to opportunities, but we won't find them their jobs.

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Sometimes being a mentor means sharing hard truths about actions—or the lack of them. Our job is to do so constructively, and the mentee's job is to learn, grow, and do better. In fact, in all the feedback we received from June, her critical input was the most beneficial to our research. Sometimes the stuff you don’t want to hear is the most important and can push you in directions you didn’t expect.

No matter how far along we are in our careers, we will always benefit from the kindness and encouragement of good people helping us along the way. We hope that this post will inspire you to find someone to mentor or look for your own mentor. It’s actually pretty easy! Reach out to someone on LinkedIn, invite a colleague to join you for a coffee, or send an email to someone you admire and tell them you want to learn from them. We think you will be pleasantly surprised at how willing people are to give of their time.