Leaving a Legacy Through Mentoring
For people over 50, now is the perfect time in our careers to think about the legacy we want to leave. Our legacy may be seen in the culture we created with and for our companies. It may be seen in breakthrough thinking or a new product. It may be seen in transformational strategies or entrepreneurial enterprises. One legacy I often consider comes into being through mentorship.
When we broaden the description of mentoring to include the concept of influence, we can think of mentoring as a part of the legacy we leave in a person, an organization, a culture. One’s legacy can be derived from an image of the life he or she has led in a particular setting or profession.
After many decades of mentorship and coaching I have identified several contributors toward being a successful mentor and leaving a significant legacy.
Listen to Your Mentee’s Needs
Your mentee’s goals are usually related to where they are in their professional lives, so it is helpful to ask them and then to key your response to that perspective. Ask your mentee, “what is meaningful to you and why? And ask, ‘What do you aspire to?” “How do you want to make your mark at this company?” “Who inspires you?”
Develop an Intentional Mindset
Think carefully to name your intentions in this mentoring relationship. “What does this particular mentee need from you at this time?” Be intentional about who you take on as a mentee. Be intentional about what you want to see in this organization and what you will do to make that happen.”
Live your Values
With regard to legacy through mentorship, the most important part of creating a legacy is knowing your own values and being really purposeful about sharing them.
Hold a ‘Significant Presence’
The more accomplished you are, the more you are observed by those wanting to learn from you. Complimenting an Intentional Mindset is your presentation as a leader in speaking, writing, and everyday actions, which is critically important to modeling influence. Dr. Kathryn Cramer called this “Signature Presence” referring to the combination of elements that makes me who I am as a leader. The combination consists of my talents, my accrued wisdom, my subject matter expertise, and my emotional intelligence and relational skills. When I am purposeful about promoting my Signature Presence, I am thinking about what I want to radiate out into the world and what effect I want it to have. For me, that’s calls for being purposeful in my behavior, in the kinds of conversation I want to have, or in what I want to take a stand for in an organization.
I have spent much reflection time and action time honing my Signature Presence, and I have encouraged my mentees and my coaching clients to be more purposeful about theirs. By observing us, sometimes others are responding to us as mentors and we don’t even know it. They are watching our behavior and style and they want to emulate it.
Further an Emotional Connection
This step takes a good deal of reflection about the scope of the mentorship relationship you want to co-create with your mentee. It takes Emotional Intelligence, relational skills, awareness, and boundary setting. Managing yourself and validating people’s experiences when you are together is important for both mentor and mentee. In a mentoring relationship, we share emotional moments. Perhaps we will tear up when mentees have difficult times. And we also will experience joy, surprise or a good laugh together.
Give Action-Oriented Advice
Discussions about goals, values, and emotions can lead to potential changes in behaviors. Mentoring, by its very nature, is action-oriented. Your mentee is going to act in a new way as a result of your conversation or observation. In guiding your mentee on her actions, think about the qualities you want to see in leaders in the future. If the mentee likes the wisdom, is attracted to it, and wants to make those values her own, she can incorporate them into her own environment through her actions.
The Ripple Effect That Creates A Legacy
Mentorship may be formal or informal, long-term or short term. Regardless of its parameters, it’s important to check yourself that your mentorship is matching your intentions. When mentoring someone in a work role or a leadership role, I’m thinking about what creates a legacy there – not just about the mentee, but a ripple effect into the culture.
“I ask myself: ‘What have I done, or created, or contributed, that makes the kind of culture that I stand for, that I think is important for the business to adopt?’ Mentoring is often rewarding when a whole culture improves even though you are just working with one individual. I’ve seen it many times.
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Aspire clients are seeking to advance their understanding and skills to move to a higher and more satisfying level in their professional and/or personal lives. At Aspire, I counsel and coach clients to set new goals based on a deeper understanding of one’s self and one’s organization. Thinking together, we find ways of reaching one’s career development and family relationship goals through positive psychology and Asset Based Thinking™.
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