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Is Mentorship Really THAT Important? Hell Yes

Your Most Powerful Tool

By Peter CursonPublished 6 years ago 2 min read
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Are you a leader? Guess what—that means you’re also a mentor.

By definition, a leader has followers who they, well, lead. In my experience, the most effective tool a leader can utilize to be a successful leader is mentorship. No matter what your organization is—from the military to Apple headquarters—there is the opportunity to mentor your followers, and I’m here to tell you that if you seize that opportunity, great and wondrous things will follow. Boosted efficiency, decreased problems and issues, a positive work environment, and so much more.

Mentorship is paramount in the development of your followers.

I’m sure you expect your followers to do their best in all they do, right? Well let’s face it: Two weeks of orientation and on-the-job training is often never enough for a person to master their job/responsibility/role. If they have no one to help them along with continued feedback, teaching, and motivation, how will they ever grow and realize their full potential? That’s what mentorship is all about.

The responsibility for a fully-effective team lies with the leader.

When a follower is part of a mentoring relationship, their esteem, confidence, knowledge, and skill all rise drastically. Not only that, but they feel wanted, appreciated, and they feel a sense of purpose in your organization. I know that all sounds very touchy-feely, but wow is it important. Just think, have you ever worked somewhere where you weren’t appreciated and it seemed no one cared at all about the work you put in? How did that make you feel?

When you take the time to mentor your followers, the rewards are endless.

Followers gain a lot of their positive experiences, knowledge, and confidence from their leaders. The mentoring that leaders carry out is of equal importance to the formal skills training their followers receive. Training does just that—train people in areas of knowledge, but it is their mentors that motivate, encourage, and help them achieve success within their training.

It’s time to not only lead your followers, but take them under your wing.

Take an interest in them, praise them when they do something good and give them advice on how to improve when they don’t, and, arguably most importantly, make sure they know you appreciate them.

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About the Creator

Peter Curson

Leadership Instructor 🔑🔓

Fantasy Author ⚔️🛡

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