Cloudy, rainy, cooler, yet still humid this morning. A refreshingly wonderful break from the oven we've lived in the last two weeks. Though off from work again today, I arose at my customary hour of five-thirty. The only thing on the agenda today is laundry, which isn't a necessity, but if I get it done today, I won't have to worry about it over the weekend.
And speaking of the weekend, thesis reseach will go forward as planned, but I won't be conducting it myself. I've delegated it to one of my employees who has assisted me with the fieldwork periodically throughout the year. He's pretty sharp and has quickly picked up the research methodologies, so I'm confident that things will get done in reasonably good order. In a sense, I've served as his mentor both academically and in the workplace.
Mentoring is an important leadership quality that seems to be either lacking or overlooked in many career fields. This is unfortunate since mentoring is perhaps the best way to create capacity in those who have potential that otherwise may not be tapped, or slow to develop via standardized on-the-job training programs. Mentoring is also an art; it's not something that can easily be learned through books or classes. One has to have a mentor at some point to truly learn this art and eventually become a mentor themselves.
While I've had guidace to varying degrees from many individuals in my almost six years in the public health field, I have been exceedinly fortunate to have one true mentor who can certainly be credited with developing my approach to leadership (that I now employ) and my idealistic passion for public health. He was a health director with whom I worked for almost two years before he moved on to bigger and better things. Right after our initial meeting (which I remember very well), he took me under his wing and taught me so much about leadership, public health, and, indirectly, the subtle art of mentoring. Near the end of our partnership, he arranged my first international public health mission, a trip which I initially declined, citing my inexperience in such mattters. But he believed and I eventually yielded to his gentle persistence. The trip was a success and I contributed more than I thought my abilities at the time would allow. What's more, the trip opened up a much larger, more mature, perspective of public health and helped define ultimate career goals.
Much of what was learned during my own mentorship, I apply today serving as a mentor guiding the development of one mentee in the workplace. While it's important to maintain the proper manager-employee relationship, it's nonetheless critical to develop a sense of being colleagues working together for the ultimate goal. Mentoring is all about developing a trusting partership which facilitates the natural transfer of knowledge and skills from one to the other. In addition to his regular duties, he often takes on additional projects under my guidance which helps build both his abilities and confidence. We define goals for these additional projects and I frequently ask his thoughts on problems in order to develop critical thinking skills (e.g., "With this situation...what would you do and why?"). Right and wrong answers aren't nearly as important at this stage as the process of a logically-developed approach.
Unfortunately, one inevitably runs the risk of accusations of "favoritism" with a metor-mentee relationship. Such assusations are typically generated by the less-talented, career employees who've been in the same position for 15 or 20 years and demonstrate little initiative in their normal duties, let alone seeking out additional responsibilities and/or personal enhancement. So in a sense they are somewhat correct in terms of preferential treatment (from an odd point of view), but that's simply the nature of mentoring. You identify those with talent and potential (and a demonstrated willingness to be mentored--this is a key point) and proceed to develop such potential to new levels.
Certainly mentoring can be a time-consuming process, but its benefits to all involved (the mentor, the mentee, and the organization) far outweigh any perceived inconvenience. And it's probably due to the perception of inconvenience that mentoring-- true mentoring-- is an infrequently practiced art. This is unfortunate because mentoring not only develops individual ability, it also creates future leaders, the next generation who will face new and complex challenges. In any career field, such long-term preparation is the key to success.
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