Want to reach the top? Get a mentor

By Nnaemeka Meribe      Wednesday, 25 Nov 2009               The dream of most young professionals is to get to the zenith of their careers. Of course, some also dream of veering off along the way to become entrepreneurs. However, whether a young professional wants to get to the top of his career or become a successful entrepreneur, experts say one sure way of achieving that dream is having a good mentor—someone who has travelled that road before. A mentor is like a guiding light that reveals the path to success to his protégé. The mentor is usually more experienced than the mentee. He possesses the wisdom that only comes from experience. The mentee is someone who is looking to move up the career ladder, usually following in the footsteps of the mentor. ”Mentoring can be physical, direct, intellectual or spiritual. Every one that seeks to grow needs a mentor or an inspirer. We all need a shoulder to climb through,” says the Executive Vice Chairman of Pertcom & Partners, a marketing communications firm, Dr. Osar Philips Emokpae. ”Those who may not have direct mentors can seek mentoring through reading books written by a desired mentor.” To the Managing Director of After School Graduate Development Centre, Detoun Ogwo, ” everyone needs the support, feedback and advise of someone who has gone ahead of you, so it is critical that young professionals with compelling goals find someone who can mentor them” Emokpae, who is the author of the motivational book, ‘From Minimum to Maximum‘, says some of most successful chief executives are those who submitted themselves to be mentored. ”A mentor is a builder of leaders. Jack Welch mentored Ihmelt to become Chief Executive Officer of General Electric. Dr. Christopher Kolade mentored Bunmi Oni to become CEO of Cadbury. Mr. Felix Ohiwerei mentored Festus Odimegwu to become CEO of Nigerian Breweries and Mr. Biodun Shobanjo mentored Jimi Awosika to become CEO of Insight”, he explains. But does everybody need a mentor in order to succeed? In their article in www.steppingup.ysf.ca titled: ”Why do you need a mentor?” Messrs Aaron Hakim, Jean-Philippe Demers, and Tahbit Chowdhury, acknowledge that ” Award-winning projects have been prepared by participants who had little external help and guidance. Some projects were designed completely independently, thus showing no apparent need for formal mentors.” They, however, add that the vast majority of winners at top fairs have mentors. For Ogwo, it cannot be said with cast-iron certainty that every young professional requires a mentor to succeed. She, however, stresses the importance of submitting oneself to the guidance of a mentor. ”I can speak from a personal perspective, I have two mentors- one in Nigeria and the other in an international firm outside Nigeria. They have contributed immensely to my career development largely because I open up myself to their critique and stretching assignments, she explains. ”I think it is advisable to have a mentor but mentoring must not be confused for connection in the context we hold it in these parts, it is a developmental experience that involves a commitment from the mentee to learn and pay the price of success.” A 2004 study by an American business charity, Catalyst, titled: ‘Women and Men in United States Corporate Leadership: Same Workplace, Different Realities‘ also stresses the role mentors play in career success. Findings from the study revealed that 56 per cent of female and 52 per cent of male executives named ”having an influential mentor or sponsor” as an important or very important success strategy. Ogwo, however, advises young professionals to be circumspect in choosing mentors. She says they should ” look for someone who is interested in your development and whom you can be accountable to, it does not necessarily have to be a popular or famous person especially if they are extremely busy and cannot commit to the time that building a mentoring relationship takes”. However, the relationship between a mentor and a mentee, experts say, should not be a master-servant affair. The ”relationship should be professional and guided by principles of mutual respect, humility, commitment to learning and focus”, says Ogwo who is also a career counsellor. ”The mentee must know what learning gaps relating to the mentor will help them close and engage the mentor in question and answer sessions that may shed some light on how they navigated their careers. In my estimation, mentoring is largely a learning intervention driven by the mentee and on which action must be taken to implement learning curves”. This relationship could also be mutually beneficial. Writing in www.about.com, Ms. Dawn Rosenberg McKay, notes that while ”the mentee receives guidance and helpful advice, and perhaps invitations to industry events and introductions to industry higher-ups, the mentor also benefits from the opportunity to strengthen his leadership skills”, New entrepreneurs will also find mentors valuable. When there is no boss any more to turn to for advice or direction, there is the need for a good reliable sounding board, second opinion, and sometimes just emotional support. At such times mentors become very useful. ”Entrepreneurs do not usually have good training”, says business consultant and motivational speaker, Mr. Nath McAbraham-Inajoh. ”But when an experienced entrepreneur take you under his wings, it can be invaluable. You can imagine what it would mean for a young entrepreneur if a Dangote puts a word or two across to his (Dangote‘s) business associates for him.” But McAbraham-Inajoh, who is a Principal Partner at Mc Abrahams Limited, advises against firms having mentorship programmes where new hires are paired with those already established in their jobs, saying mentoring works best when it is voluntary. ”For companies, I usually advise that mentoring is not forced on younger employees. It will be counter-productive if a young person is paired with manager X and two of them do not flow. So it is best when a young person voluntarily submits himself to a mentor rather than being paired with a mentor by the company”, he says.