“Why do I need a mentor?” I asked myself when my boss first suggested it at the time. “Do you feel I am failing?” I asked him outright. “No” he replied “I don’t see you as failing, I see you having the ability to succeed, to make a genuine difference to your people and the organisation. But failing and succeeding is not why I am suggesting you should find a mentor. I want you to find a mentor because I see the potential in you and I want to see that potential nurtured, developed and ultimately converted into proven ability. And, I don’t want to wait for years for this learning to happen, I want to see the benefits.”
And so started a journey with my mentor, a wonderful lady called Christine, who 20 years on can still stop me in my tracks, make me see the world differently and make me think. She has this uncanny knack of by-passing all my defences and hitting the nub of my dilemma with laser accuracy! She has no real idea of just how much she has helped me over the years.
“Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen,
a push in the right direction, and someone on your side”
Christine is not the only mentor I have benefited from. Some were more operationally or commercially focused, others were more guides for specific parts of the journey. But, together with Christine, they all had certain things in common: I learnt to trust them because they were trustworthy, and that they were on my side. They we all capable of delivering the hard messages without destroying my confidence or sense of self-worth, and they all left their egos some else whenever they were engaging with me.
I started to mentor others around 15 years ago but it was not until 2010 that I started to mentor people who were outside my own organisation. And credit should go to PwC Australia for encouraging me to so. As well as members of the FS world I was very fortunate to mentor people from very different walks of life; for example a senior police officer and a head of sustainability for a global mining company. And who learnt the most? Too close to call I feel. They were gracious in saying that I helped them, but the reality is that I learnt just as much as they did!
Today I lead our mentoring service and that is a privilege. We are passionate about helping others unleash their potential. To watch someone who you have shared time with achieve a goal, manage a difficult situation, make the tough call or find a better balance, is one of the most rewarding things I have done.
Working with a mentor is a very personal thing; you have to feel comfortable with the mentor. You have to know they are on your side even when they are telling you things you would rather not hear. We therefore spend time with all our potential mentorees before entering into any mentoring arrangements, to allow us both to assess whether we can make the relationship work.
So, what has having a mentor and mentoring others taught me? That I rarely have all the answers and two heads are always better than one. And that it is good to know that you have someone on the bench who is truly on your side.
Richard Gossage
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