“Lean In,” by Sheryl Sandberg
Chapter Five: “Are You My Mentor”

I have strong feelings about mentors, much stronger than the feelings I have about this chapter. Yes, talking about mentoring is important, but once again, I believe this entire chapter could be boiled down to a paragraph or two and incorporated somewhere else in the book.

Prior to joining the Foreign Service, I had mentors, but none that I called by that title. I was most close to one of my French professors who specialized in Medieval French Literature, the field I hoped to go into. I respected him and envied his skills so much, and I tried to spend as much time with him as possible. At the same time, I didn’t have any notion about what a mentor was, nor did it enter my mind until much later that he was, in fact, a very important mentor for me.

In the Foreign Service the concept of mentorship is well defined. I had the opportunity to request a mentor when I began working for the State Department, and again when working at my first post. In both cases, I was paired with successful, intelligent, interesting, and caring male mentors. But I really learned to use the mentor system best during my tour in Manila, under the leadership of the fantastic
Kristie Kenney, who I now consider as a vicarious mentor through following her on Twitter, Facebook, and other Foreign Service channels.

During that Manila tour, we had a session about what it means to be a mentor and what it means to be a mentee. The best advice I received was that mentoring is not a one-way relationship. The mentee has to be willing to take the lead in the relationship. It’s incumbent on the mentee – the person who is getting the greatest benefit in the relationship – to keep in touch with the mentor and remind him that I’m still here, and that I need and want his advice and counsel.

Here are this Sandberg’s main points on mentoring:

1. Don’t ask a total stranger to mentor you.

2. Use your time with experts to ask thoughtful questions that show that you have done your homework.

3. Mentors are important, but if you excel at your job, and you cultivate good business relationships, those connections should occur naturally.

4. When a mentor-mentee relationship is done right, it should yield benefits for both parties.

5. Mentors don’t have time for excessive hand-holding. When you ask your mentor to share their time with you, make sure you’re prepared. Focus on specific problems with real solutions.

6. Be open to “peer-to-peer” mentoring relationships. They can “provide more current and useful counsel.”

Mentors are like a secret weapon. My network of mentors now extends far beyond my two officially assigned colleagues. I claim specialty mentors, like those I ask to review my self-evaluation statements each year. I have Management mentors, to whom I turn when I’m not sure how to solve a personnel issue or regulation. I have “women in the workplace” mentors, including Elizabeth Power, whose amazing examples show the success women can have if we do “Lean In” and encourage other women to realize their potential as well.

How have your mentors improved or changed your success at work or in your personal life?

Image credits:

Starfish: http://www.river-management.org/mentoring
Yoda: http://www.youngentrepreneur.com/blog/a-good-mentor-will-tell-it-like-it-is/
Kristie Kenney: AP photo