You Don’t _Need_ a Mentor to Thrive

Career growth can absolutely happen without a mentor. However, learning to create positive mentoring relationships can still help.

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The concept of “having a mentor” used to be a distant dream for me.

When I first started in the working world, I sensed deeply the insights that a wise, travel-tested professional would be able to impart on me.

They could help me understand how to steer my career towards the opportunities that aligned with my most cherished skills and my passions.

They could help me understand how to work with a variety of people, each of whom had their own set of values and perspectives, not always the same as mine. They could help me navigate those relationships to get to the best possible outcome.

But, somehow, mentors weren’t forthcoming.

I didn’t have the network at the time to seek these types of leaders out, and, back then, there wasn’t the corporate infrastructure to support it either.

So, I got good at grabbing the opportunities that did arise. If I met someone skilled in an area I needed expertise in, I could usually get them to ramp me up in one quick 1:1 (or two or three, once they saw that me being better educated tended to help them as well). I read books. I attended lectures and workshops. I did what I could to find experts who could train me in the areas I needed to grow.

I still do this.

And, somewhere along the way, I realized maybe I didn’t have a problem finding a mentor. I had a problem trying to reconcile the experiences I was having, which were enriching and growing me, with the idealized version of “mentoring” I had read or heard about. Maybe I did have mentors, I thought. I just didn’t have a regular, on-going session with a seasoned colleague who was taking me under their wings for a bit.

So I muddled my way through.

Then, at some point, 15 years or so into my career, when things were starting to take off more for me with opportunities and promotions coming faster than before, I found myself with not one but two mentors and one coach.

And, I also found I couldn’t shake them off even if I had wanted to.

Every meeting I’d have, they’d offer more help. They’d create a vision of where we could go together. They eagerly accepted my requests to meet again.

By the time I had stopped longing for some unrealistic mentor- protégé relationship, I had also proven myself protégé-capable, so those relationships showed up without my asking.

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Somewhere along the way of riding that new wave, I realized I also wanted to be a mentor, and eventually I found that others were seeking me out to be one too.

It’s been a winding, sometimes challenging, always illuminating journey.

And, it’s given me a better understanding of what mentoring is, how some people practice it, and what mentoring should or could be.

Mentoring Is For the Mentee

First and foremost, mentoring is for the mentee. While that seems obvious, it isn’t.

Step back to why mentors came out of the woodwork the moment I started looking like I could blossom under their insights and guidance. Mentoring gives the mentor tangible currency that compounds the higher you want to climb the corporate ladder. The more you are seen as someone who grows the capabilities of others, who brings out the best in them, who draws talent towards you, the more opportunities arise and then the more talent that gets drawn towards you.

So, there are career advantages that mentors get from mentoring. This is a happy side-effect. It just shouldn’t be turned into the primary goal.

It is notable as a side-effect, though. Mentees often worry they aren’t giving back anything to the mentor that is helping them out so much. In this, they forget that their personal or career growth is their way of giving back to their mentor. It doesn’t have to be huge or notable to be significant either. Mentors who love what they do get satisfaction from every victory their mentee has because of the relationship, regardless of the visibility or career impact.

However, this mutually-beneficial experiment needs to begin with a relationship that works for the mentee.

Mentees Own Identifying If a Relationship Will Nurture or Harm Them

Because the relationship is for the mentee, mentees need to realize they can and should change course if the relationship won’t work for them.

There are a couple types of dynamics I have seen that are important to sort through to establish a relationship that will work.

Brutally honest coach vs. encouraging cheerleader: Some people appreciate a coach-mentor that can be brutally honest, often delivering tough truths they need to hear. This can even be necessary for leaders who may not respond to a subtle suggestion (“Do you think it would help your quieter talent if you didn’t monopolize the conversation?”) as well as to a direct statement (“You’re disillusioning your talent by not letting them get a word in. You’ll lose them soon if you don’t stop.”). However, others want a gentler hand or want the direct honesty coming from a more supportive place (To the quieter talent: “When you don’t speak up in meetings and take your space, you’re denying the group your perspectives. You’ve seen how this causes everyone more problems down the road.”).

Advice as one-upmanship vs. advice as support: This dynamic is more insidious and can be harder to detect the first time it happens. Not everyone who offers support comes from a selfless place. I’m learning this deeply as a new company owner as that territory comes with many offers to help, but the dynamic is there in corporate environments too.

You’ll know it by how the advice makes you feel:

-          Does it match your situation? A key tell for me is someone giving me advice not aligned to where I’m at or advice that is to do exactly what I’m already doing. In either case, the advisor didn’t take the time to understand my situation first.

-          Does it give you a sense of “Ah-ha – that’s useful!” or does it give you a sense of inadequacy? You may need to probe on this further as some good advice can be delivered or received in a way that initially doesn’t land, but you’ll know as the conversation continues. Do you feel as you talk further that you’re getting more clarity into concrete, realistic, and manageable steps you can take? Or, do you feel overwhelmed with actions that don’t seem to match your values, your temperament, or your bandwidth?

Mentoring Is Helpful But Not Necessary

I probably didn’t need a mentor as much as I thought I did early in my career. However, mentoring is still a helpful, and often mutually beneficial, way to share expertise and grow talent.

As a mentee, you do need to own it, though.

If you don’t have a formal mentoring relationship, you need to own finding the insights where you can: talks, articles, books, AI, or even short discussions with colleagues. And, if you do have a relationship, you’re the one in the driver’s seat. Make sure it’s a nurturing relationship for you and change it if it isn’t.

And mentors, remember that your job is to grow the mentee, not yourself. The reward is less personal and more organizational and global. That doesn’t mean it’s a lesser reward, though.

When one person can help another person overcome obstacles, see things in a new way, and start moving forward better than before, the whole team, organization, or community improves.