Pick up one of hundreds of books on business and industry leadership or corporate strategy to augment military professional reading, and readers will find insightful lessons for military leaders at the personal, as well as the organizational level. Among the many messages and themes they offer, there is particular emphasis on the importance of team-building, vision, and servant-leadership. Likewise, if one were to Google books on mentorship, they would find the same. There are countless books and articles with advice on mentoring, how to be a good mentor, how to find a mentor, and the dynamics of healthy, fruitful, and rewarding mentoring relationships.
But, is mentorship still valued in the military? Ask a junior leader, and you will most likely find mixed messages. They may demur or they may likely express that they value, seek, and long for a rewarding mentoring relationship. Navigating a military career can be intimidating, frustrating, mystifying, and complicated. A challenge they face, however, is the perplexing experiment of finding a great mentor.
Mentors can be much like a friend. They come in and out of a career, much like friends come in and out of life. We find and make friends for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. Good friends are made and found for a reason or a season. Great friends last a lifetime. So it is with mentors.
In a survey of mentorship programs across the all the military services, inquiring minds would find that the military takes a very formal, institutional, large-scale approach to mentorship. Service differences center on the level of formality, the voluntary nature of the relationship, and the hierarchy between the advisor and guide that is superior in rank, and the personal developmental needs of the mentee.
The Army Mentorship Program, formally developed and launched in 2005, was unveiled with great intention. The website for the program was last updated 10 years ago. It is, as one would expect, clinical and prescriptive. The instructive Army Mentorship Handbook, published with the launch of the program, states that mentoring relationships should conform to the following principles:
- Be between voluntary participants that are not in the same chain of command
- Be between participants that are “about two grades” of rank in degree of separation
- Be between participants in the same career field or occupational specialty
The handbook goes on to provide additional instruction in a generic “Frequently Asked Questions” format.
Is this how mentorship works in the real world? For “good” mentoring relationships: Maybe? For “great” mentoring relationships: No!
The secret to understanding “great” mentoring is not well-hidden, but it is not well-publicized. It is easily found in the pages of military history. For Soldiers, all one must do is pick up a biography about Fox Conner, one of the greatest mentors in Army history. If reading about great military generals and admirals is not of interest, read a biography about a contemporary senior leader. Any of these tomes will reveal the secrets of great mentoring relationships to insightful readers.
Good mentors come in and out of a career for a reason or a season. They may be sought after for a specific reason, such as to assist in understanding how to prepare for promotion or an upcoming school. They may be sought after for a season, to guide, for example, a junior leader in the formative years as a non-commissioned, commissioned, or warrant officer.
One would expect that good mentoring relationships involve coaching, teaching, feedback, advice, encouragement, and leadership by example. The secret to great mentoring relationships, however, is the establishment of a bond of friendship and trust. Great mentoring relationships involve more than acting as a counselor; great mentors are also great advocates.
For servicemembers, much of a military career is about earning promotion and advancement based on merit. Soldiers earn their rank and increasing levels of responsibility by demonstrating their potential. However, as Soldiers advance through the ranks and into roles as organizational leaders, rank and position are earned not only by merit, but, more importantly, by reputation and the advocacy of mentors.
An email, phone call, or letter of recommendation advancing a subordinate’s career leads to exceptional opportunities gained not just by merit alone, but with the advocacy of a senior leader. Skeptics need only look at some of our most successful general officers and the career paths of their trusted subordinates. Observed closely, one finds that great leaders tend to be great mentors leaving great legacies of subordinates’ careers for which they advocated and helped to advance. The dividends of great mentoring relationships are rewarding in both directions for a lifetime.