When you come to a point in life that you discover that someone passionately depends on you for guidance, then you know assuredly that responsibility is bestowed on you. That is true mentorship. As a mentor you wear the toga of responsibility. You take it upon yourself to take someone by the hand and lead him/her to their place of accomplishment. You support them to win.
A mentor constantly ensures that he/she guides the mentee/protégé aright often. More than anything else, a mentor must use sincerity to nurture the relationship with his or her mentee or protégé. One great tool to use is authenticity and being true to both yourself and the other.
As a mentor, you do not have all the answers. Nobody does. One thing you must do each time is to own up to not knowing rather than being a phoney and saying what is untrue. Being authentic seems to be one of the biggest challenges of man for all time. Its root is in the absence of humility.
Mentors must not speak falsehood with a certitude required of truth because they know that the protégé will believe. This is likened to treachery and betrayal of trust. Mentors are role models. They must stay so. Staying role models means continuous sacrificing and subscribing to the tenets of authenticity.
Protégés have to find out things themselves. Yet, mentors must live in the consciousness that they have been placed in a position to lead and guide another, whether by fate, or by the protégé's choosing after observing the exemplary lifestyle of the mentor.
Mentors must be nothing but authentic and courageous. When you mentor people, you do not micromanage them because you do not want them to make mistakes, or you want to prevent them from getting bruised.
Getting bruised is great because scars are needed. Bruises are the badges that are earned in the walk toward self-actualization. Bruises contribute greatly to self-preservation.
Sometimes you have to let them go through their own experience. They have to have something for themselves, and this goes beyond you. It is what makes them live out their own uniqueness.
There is always a dichotomy between a macromanager and a micromanager. In a bid to ensure that the protégé is protected, mentors are tempted to get in the way of their protégés. This is counterproductive.
Emotions do get in the way sometimes. It is okay because the mentor is truly passionate about the protégé winning but mentors must be conscious enough to use self-control.
Despite the mentor's guidance, mentees have to find themselves. It is their call. You may need to lose to see them proved wrong. That relationship is one of constant learning for the mentor too because he or she does not know it all, even in the area of life that the mentorship guidance is being provided.
A protégé sometimes ends up achieving more than the mentor. I should think that this is the whole idea behind the tutelage but for this to happen, we must permit failures, we must excuse mistakes even when we reprove the vessel that makes a slip. We must emphasize that mistakes and errors are great treasures in the path of winning.
Mentorship is far from trying to get another to pander to you or to toe your own path or to even get you to get them to follow your own path. No. It is about guiding them to be who they are meant to be. You support them to find and become who they are meant to become.
