By Sulaimon Olanrewaju
Everyone who aspires to greatness needs a mentor. Anyone who is imbued with the vision to make an impact in life requires a mentor. Anybody who hopes to be better than he currently is needs to get a mentor. To build a great company, you need to have a mentor. To be an outstanding athlete, you require a mentor. If you want to become a leader worth following, you must of necessity submit to a mentor. This is because having travelled the route before, a mentor helps to avoid obstacles, and helps you back on your feet when you experience a setback. Mentors curb excesses and give wings to vision. They help in managing weaknesses and maximizing capacity. Mentors bring closer what seems afar; they also bring to realization what ordinarily wears the toga of illusion. To operate without a mentor is to subject oneself to avoidable difficulties and put a cap on the realization of one’s potentialities.
A mentor is a person knowledgeable and experienced enough to guide another person, candid enough to earn the trust of a mentee, passionate enough about the mentee’s vision to invest his time in its realization and patient enough to bear with the inadequacies of his mentee.
Between Walter Sisulu and Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela is regarded as one of the most respected political leaders in history. Honours were bestowed on him across the globe. He was courted by royalty and sought after by presidents. Businessmen, sports people and politicians flocked around him; everyone wanted to identify with him. Mandela wrote his name in gold not just because he was in prison for 27 years or because he fought for the emancipation of his people but principally because as President of South Africa, he resisted the temptation to pay back the champions of apartheid in their own coin. Rather than build walls, he built bridges and used his presidency to heal the wounds of the past in his country. This endeared him to the world and he became a global icon.
But Mandela would probably have been an inconsequential South African if not for his encounter with Walter Sisulu, the South African anti-apartheid activist who inducted him into freedom fighting and molded him into becoming a great leader. Sisulu did not have much of formal education, he left school after Standard 4 but he was able to inspire and challenge those with university education, helping them to find purpose in life.
According to Mandela himself, in the tribute he paid to Sisulu after his demise in 2003, “By ancestry, I was born to rule. Xhamela (Sisulu) helped me understand that my real vocation was to be a servant of the people.” He added, “His home was the centre of our being together. He held his own; he interacted with ease and without a trace of inferiority. He was attracted to each of us, yet he was the magnet that drew us all together. That was his hallmark: an ability to attract and work together with highly competent and talented young men, a ready sounding board for ideas. He was a powerful influence who exuded respect for their talents and a born diplomat. He was courageous and his quiet self-confidence and clarity of vision marked him out as a leader among us.”
Sisulu mentored and modeled Mandela into a world-class leader. Mandela’s focus would have been different and so would have been the course of his life if not for the mentoring provided by Sisulu. So, though he never became the South African President nor won the Nobel Prize, Sisulu had a prize more desirable than the Nobel; he had riches that were more precious than diamonds; he mentored Mandela and gave the world one of its best men.
Benefits of having a mentor
Having a mentor comes with a whole lot of benefits. Here are some of them.
You minimize your mistakes
While it is possible to succeed without having a mentor, doing so will definitely be herculean as you have to be your own pathfinder. It is akin to climbing a mountain without a guide. Though some people have been able to get to the summit of certain mountains without a guide, majority of those who attempted it had sorry tales to share. Mountains are usually filled with crevices and obstacles that could turn out to be really dangerous without the help of a guide. So, solo climbing is usually slow and dangerous. But with a guide who has been on the mountain a couple of times, the stress and danger of mountaineering are greatly reduced because he is familiar with the terrain. The same goes for other aspects of life.
Learning is the precursor of doing. The much that is known is the much that can be done. But if a person has to learn everything that he needs to make an impact all by himself, he will make too many mistakes in the process and progress would be slow. That is where mentors come in. A mentor is someone who has been where you hope to get to. A mentor has either made his mistakes and learnt from them or has learnt from others’ mistakes. So, when you submit to him and allow him to provide guidance, you minimize your mistakes because you will benefit from his experience and avoid the mistakes that he made on his journey to the top.
You accelerate your success rate
One hindrance to success is lack of focus. Many people who are just starting out are often attracted by many things. Similarly, many multi-talented young people usually spread themselves thin and are, consequently, unable to devote quality time to that which is critical to their success. This often retards their progress and hinders them from accomplishing as much as they ought to. But having a mentor, who, with the benefit of hindsight, knows the drawback of having many irons in the fire, helps you to overcome this likely albatross.
A young employee once approached Warren Buffet, one of the wealthiest men in the world, seeking his counsel on how to be effective. In response, Buffet asked him to write out his top 25 goals. The employee wrote out the 25. After writing out the list, Buffet asked him to review the list and identify his top five goals. The employee went through the list and after a while circled five items on the list. Then, Buffet asked him what he was going to do with the two lists. The employee said, “I will start working on my top five goals right away.”
When Buffet asked him about the second list his response was that, “Well, the top five are my primary focus, but the other 20 come in a close second. They are still important so I’ll work on those intermittently as I see fit. They are not as urgent, but I still plan to give them a dedicated effort.”
Buffet then responded and said, “Everything you didn’t circle just became your Avoid-At-All-Cost list. No matter what, these things get no attention from you until you’ve succeeded with your top five.”
While many young leaders seek validation in doing many things, experienced leaders know that doing too many things constitutes a hindrance to doing what really matters. Sometimes the difference between mediocrity and excellence is in knowing what to do at all cost and what to avoid at all cost. Knowing the difference comes with experience. Submitting to a mentor can confer the experience.
You leverage their influence
Not only does a mentor avail his mentee of his experience, he also avails him of his network. A mentor opens doors for his mentee by allowing the mentee the use of his platform to leap into greatness. By making his network available to his mentee, a mentor shortens the distance between the mentee and the people he needs to actualize his vision; he allows the mentee to ride on his back to success.
A young lawyer went to an old and respected lawyer asking him to be his mentor. Ever willing to help, the senior lawyer took his younger colleague through some sessions on the ingredients of success in law practice. At the end of the sessions, he asked the young lawyer to join him on a stroll. Together they walked the length and breadth of the street with the old lawyer holding the hand of his mentee and chatting with him. At the end of the walk they returned to the old lawyer’s office. After a moment of expecting his senior to say something without anything coming from him, the young lawyer said, “I enjoyed the walk and the talk.”
“So did I,” replied the mentor.”
Another lapse into silence. Then the young lawyer said, “Am I missing something?”
“I think so,” replied the senior.
“Oh, what is that?”
“You did not ask why we took that walk.”
“Oh, I thought it was just for you to exercise your legs.”
“If it were so, I wouldn’t have asked you to join me.”
“I am sorry about that. So, why did we take the walk?”
“It was to show everyone that I approve of you. By walking with you and holding your hand, everybody who saw us together will know that I have confidence in you and in your ability. They will know that I have endorsed you. With that those who trust me will trust you, my friends will become your friends and those who have confidence in my ability will be willing to give you a try.”
And that was the way it played out. Since he had the walk with that senior lawyer, the young lawyer never lacked patronage.
They hold you accountable
Without the intervention of mentors, the likelihood of young leaders getting into excesses is high. While some may over exert themselves, others are likely to be overindulgent of themselves. But when there is a mentor, who asks questions to hold the mentee accountable, the risk of falling victim to your own excesses is reduced.
To keep you on course, a mentor asks questions about your fidelity to your vision, the aptitude of your personnel, the appropriateness of your process and your compliance level with corporate governance. He does not just rely on what you say but goes ahead to demand proof that what you have told him is the reality. By doing this, he is able to see whether you are on course and determine areas where you need improvement.
Mentors provide a shoulder to lean on
In the journey of life, setback is hardly avoidable. According to experts, about 70 per cent of new businesses do not survive the first three years for a number of reasons. Even quite a number of those that made it through the first three years still go down after a while. Unfortunately, many of the companies that go down never make it back, with that the efforts and the investments of the enterprising people go down the drain. But that could be averted if they have mentors who listen to them and encourage them to try one more time.
One of the things that setback does is to rob people of their confidence. Those who suffer setbacks are wont to believe that having failed once they are likely to fail again if they try. So, they need someone who believes in them enough to reassure them of the need to get up and get going. Mentors instill confidence in their mentees, they help them to overcome their self-doubts and offer them a hand to bounce back from failure to success.
Last line
A venture without a mentor could turn out a misadventure.
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