My Mentorship Philosophy 🤲

6 kinds of mentors everyone should have on their personal board of directors

The best career advice someone once gave me was shifting from thinking of mentorship as finding a single professional support system, to instead cultivating your personal board of directors. Mentorship is a 360-degree exercise. And it’s incredibly valuable to have mentors whom you can learn from (and grow with) that are “ahead,” “behind” and “rising alongside.” Here’s how I think about filling the various seats on my board of directors…

A leadership mentor 🏆

A leader you see yourself in, and presumably, they see part of you in them. Someone who is the classical archetype of someone you want to learn as much as possible from — not just what they do, but how they do it. You admire their craft, you believe in their mission, you respect their leadership. These are hard to find… if you find one, hold on tight.

A technical mentor 🛠

I’m using “technical” in the subject matter expert (SME) sense. If you’re a designer, have a design mentor. A data scientist, find a data science mentor. Someone who’s an expert in your trade who you can functionally and tactically learn and grow from.

A work-life mentor 🏠

Someone who shares/understands more about your personal life. When making decisions about whether to accept a more demanding job, or consider relocating your family for a new opportunity, this is someone who you share work-life-balance (or life-work-balance) sensibilities with, and can help you navigate advice tailored to your personal circumstances.

A powerhouse mentor 🚀

To put it plainly, the pusher. Someone to push you off the ledge, someone who genuinely believes and sees your potential… and convinces you to go outside your comfort zone. They have the authority because they themselves have taken many leaps and have had many triumphs. You may not always agree with their leadership style, but you respect their force.

A teacher mentor 📚

An introspective teacher-type mentor to unpack the failures, find the lessons, see the silver lining, and talk through where to go from here. This is the coach you want in your corner when you loose a fight.

A reverse mentor 🔄

Someone who can be your Johari’s window and shed light on what you can’t see about yourself. This person is usually best positioned as a peer or someone “behind” you in their career. I think this is an incredibly valuable self-awareness technique. In the past, I’ve had directors or VPs engage in “reverse mentorship” where leaders ask for upwards mentorship from someone “lower” in the org. It not only builds mutual trust, but also helps your organization’s leadership to be more in-tune with what’s happening on the ground. Reverse mentorship can happen at any part of the career journey, and I think it’s one that not many folks engage with enough.

Depending on your field or career goals, you can have all kinds of other mentors… speaking mentors, entrepreneurial mentors… the list goes on. We often seek mentors who “look” like us. As a woman of color, it’s easy to get paired or pushed to seek other women in positions of leadership to be our mentors. I think this is valuable, but the truth is I think everyone can/should engage in mentorship, and I think it’s just as important to find mentors who don’t look like you (like any board of directors).

All too common you see the one female-exec who is practically mentoring a thousand women at the company, while her male peers aren’t laden with nearly the same kind of social capital tax. This is the intellectual poverty cycle of mentorship. If you’re someone who isn’t mentoring anyone right now, no matter what stage of career you’re in, I’d encourage you to considering doing so!

3 Practical tips to cultivating your mentor/mentee practice…

1. Don’t get hung up on formality. I’ve found most people get stuck on the quid-pro-quo formality of labeling a mentorship relationship. In my career, some mentors/mentees are more explicit/formalized (meet X times over Y weeks). Other mentors don’t even realize they’re on my board of directors, but they’re always on the other side of a call… and whether they know it or not, they’re my secret weapon and I trust their advice in spades.
2. Cultivate relationships that are give-get. Avoid mentorship fatigue by building authentic connections with mutual growth/value. At the end of the day, mentors are just like any other kind of relationship… Don’t just lean on mentors in times of panic/distress — remember to be there for triumphs and chapters of all kinds!
3. Look beyond management. A manager should inherently be a kind of mentor, but often the most valuable mentors are ones that have stake in your livelihood, but not stake in your decision. Find your champions on and off the court.

An old photo from one of my favorite mentorship experiences — teaching women in rural Guatemala how to use computers for the VERY first time.

Thank you to all my mentors through the ages (and at all the stages) for everything you’ve taught and shown me… every step of the way. 🙏