Although National Mentoring Month (January) is over it is never a bad time to volunteer! Mentoring scares some people. Maybe it was because you may have first heard the word in Greek mythology as a faithful friend to Odysseus. He was also the teacher of Telemachus. So, if you wonder what a mentor is you can see both of these elements here – “a faithful and wise advisor.”
As a teacher who is active on social media, I have learned several secrets about mentoring that may help you get involved in this culture of mentoring that pervades successful communities, businesses and schools.
#1: Don’t expect too big of a commitment up front
That may just be what scares us off is that when someone says “will you be my mentor” we think that we’re being asked to be someone’s close faithful friend and until we know them better we’re not willing to commit to that but we have to any way. We also might not feel so wise and aren’t ready to “direct someone’s life” in such a way but really, you’re just giving advice. See it that way.
Perhaps instead of asking someone or agreeing to be a “mentor” which to many may feel like a lifelong commitment (it isn’t necessarily) – perhaps we should talk about an “advisor” or a “teacher” or a “friend.” And then, sort of like those infamous dating round table events – if an advisory relationship works out we just stay at the table and continue to ask for advice.
#2: Make introductions of people with common interests
I’ve introduced my sister, Professor Sarah Adams, a graphic designer and award winning professor for SCAD, to several budding artists in my classroom. She’s met with each of them, talked to them and given them advice and does it probably at least once a month with one of my students and several times a month with her own. She’s mentoring even though only one or two keep in touch with her.
#3: Make time to mentor to make yourself a greater leader
Steve Farber author of the mentoring super-book Greater than Yourself says about mentoring in his Harvard Business Review Article:
“The greatest, most successful and well-respected leaders that I’ve encountered in my two decades of consulting… are not just helpful: they’ve come to understand that the true measure of their greatness as leaders is their ability to develop leaders who go on to surpass them.”
When I was an intern for Senator Sam Nunn in Washington DC in the 1980’s, me and the other interns had breakfast with him twice. He took time to get to know us and to ask us questions and to give us advice or point us to meet others who could help us. I knew lots of other interns on the Hill and we were the lucky few who had a senator who cared enough to meet with us and talk to us as people with hopes and dreams. My views of him as a person grew not because he was a high achiever in DC – he already was – but it was when he stooped to help and advise someone of no account (me) that his leadership became larger than life in my eyes.
#4: Make time to mentor people of all ages
But it is more than just developing leadership for the next generation in business.
Superintendent of Quitman County Schools, Allen Fort, wrote a sentence in this past Sunday’s Atlanta Journal Constitution that hits at the desperate need for mentors for today’s students:
“A rural school in way too many students’ lives does play the role of in loco parentis.”
In loco parentis is Latin for “in place of a parent.” The less parenting we have, the more mentoring we need. Parents need mentoring from other parents who have been
through it but children need mentors as well. We can’t replace parents, but we as a society must understand that the absence of role models can be devastating to a child looking for direction.
#5 Join Mentoring Organizations
When I was at Georgia Tech, I met and admired a brilliant, beautiful architect, Ivenue Love-Stanley and met her husband, Bill Stanley. Bill talked glowingly of his work with “100 Black Men of Atlanta” and the statistics of what happened when the men would get involved in the lives of young men who needed mentors.
The men in the organization were some of the great leaders of Atlanta and they were busy, but they joined together in an organization that would facilitate and they made time in their schedules to mentor others.
You can tell the greatness of a man or woman by how he takes time to mentor others. I’d ask every CEO and professional leader if they are part of mentoring kids because it is going to take all of us and successful people have just that — success. You have cred. There are kids who will listen to you that won’t listen to their teacher or anyone else.
If your community has no such mentoring organization, it is time to start one.
#6 Reach outside your “circle” at social functions
Shirley Mewbourne, one of the first women to graduate from Georgia Tech crossed my path as I did volunteer work with the Alumni Association. She was always offering me advice and just listening to her stories helped shape me into the kind of person who could be different and make it in a man’s world (at the time).
She didn’t set aside time for me, but when she crossed my path, she took the time to talk with a college student who wanted to hear her stories. Although she’s gone now and may have never thought of her as my mentor, I definitely put her on a pedestal and viewed her as mine. Just being in her presence made me a better person and she LET ME.
Now, Shirley was at alumni functions and had probably hundreds of friends of influence and importance and yet she ALWAYS took time to let me ask her questions and she told me stories of her life. She went out of her way to get out of her clique to talk to a younger woman.
#7 Ask questions (and answer them)
(I know my UGA friends are groaning by now, but one more GT story and then I’m done.) When I was at Tech, some friends and I joined an effort by the alumni association to create the Student Alumni Association (SAA) and by some odd stroke of fortune, I was elected president. In the two years there, we grew to more than 300 members and started the Georgia Tech Ambassador program. I would love to take credit but the truth is, I was watching the best.
An amazing leader named John Carter (recently retired head of the Georgia Tech Foundation), was winning national awards for best alumni association in the country. Me and my team of officers replicated John. We watched him. We learned from him. We watched how he did events and how he made people feel and discovered that he made people feel like they were part of something special and we wanted to do that too.
When we were lucky enough to get an audience with John, I remember coming with 8-10 questions on a legal pad every time. It wasn’t just questions about SAA either, it was questions about LEADERSHIP. Yes, his meetings probably ended up longer than he planned but it was mentoring because we asked and he answered and the organizations exploded in positive growth because of it.
#8 Initiate it yourself
I taught a student in tenth grade who has moved back to Camilla. She called me up this summer and took me to lunch and said that now that she’s back, would I let her call me and we get together so we could talk sometimes? Of course I agreed.
Mentoring is something we all should do. Mentoring shouldn’t be a secret, it should be a way of life. It should be part of our community cultures, business culture and school culture that follow these principles and make time to mentor and advise.
While a very few of those relationships will span a lifetime (my father, James Lee Adams, has and always will be my main mentor), most of us will move in and out of advisory roles in the lives of others.
The thing about mentoring is that it is an intentional, helpful way of life. It makes a permanent imprint of admiration and appreciation in the lives of those who receive it. Mentoring enriches the lives and legacy of people who we come to admire as truly great leaders for doing it.
Let’s not be secretive about mentoring anymore and celebrate by implementing at least one of these practices into our lives starting today.
Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher is a full time classroom teacher at Westwood Schools in Camilla, Georgia and author of the award winning Cool Cat Teacher Blog and host of the bi-weekly podcast Every Classroom Matters. She is author of Reinventing Writing and Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds and keynotes education and technology conferences around the world about her innovative classroom practices.