(Credit: VectorMine - stock.adobe.com)
Azimuth Check
Mentorship
Will You Know it When You See It?
By Major General Joseph B. Berger with Lieutenant Colonel John E. Swords
Minus their higher rank and greater experience, my two mentors1 were mirror images of myself. We all went to the U.S. Military Academy, sharing the same commissioning source. All of us were Funded Legal Education Program officers. We were (and still are) married; each has two to three kids. We are active in our faiths. And yes, all of us are white males—so much for leveraging the proven power of diversity.2
That is where I found myself as a mid-grade lieutenant colonel. And as a result, I was missing many of the trees and probably all of the forest. Worse, imperfect as it was, I only had both mentors after I became a field-grade officer; one as a mid-grade major, the other as a new lieutenant colonel. I had certainly been counseled more than a few times. And, although I did not always realize it at the time, especially when it was not voluntary, coaches had worked to help me address specific shortcomings. But mentors, and more importantly, the right mentors? No—I was wholly deficient in this critical area that empowers personal and professional growth.3
The reality of where I was and whether I would continue to grow as a leader hit me when I finally made the time to think about it deliberately. As I started the National War College, I conducted a long overdue and necessary self-assessment. While detrimentally late, it has allowed me to help others see themselves. So, to try and empower mentors and protégés alike, I started using a tool that paints an informative picture. I think it will do the same for you.
The tool is relatively simple; but, you must start with a clear understanding of what a mentor is.4 For example, completing the matrix with your current supervisors may result in a misapplication. I am certain they coach and counsel you, but, they may not be mentors at this point in your service. To whom with greater experience do you go based on voluntary, mutual agreement for guidance focused on professional growth? That is a mentor.5 And when you seek out mentorship via that voluntary, mutual agreement, it should be a deliberate and intentional investment of your time and energy rather than an accidental arrangement.6 You may find yourself more likely to make such investments with potential mentors with whom you share interests. While this can be both a positive and a negative, I urge you to be cognizant of the possibility that you may seek out individuals who are similar to you in myriad ways and fight against what is “comfortable.”
You can conduct your own self-assessment by building the template referenced in Figure 1 below. The leftmost column contains the names of your protégés or mentors. Across the top, start with a basic set of characteristics. Those should include, at a minimum: gender, race, rank, and cohort (or branch, if outside the Judge Advocate Legal Services (JALS)). Judge advocates may also want to consider the individual’s commissioning source. All JALS members may want to consider the individual’s “bench” and key additional skill identifiers (am I a court reporter only reaching out to other court reporters?). You may also want to expand on the basic set of characteristics and include additional factors like branch or career management field, faith, or family situation.
Figure 1 depicts my situation as a mid-grade lieutenant colonel when I first deliberately contemplated from whom I sought mentorship. As I worked over the next few years to broaden the perspective that would shape the leader I wanted to be, I worried less about rank and looked outside of JALS. The relationships reflected in Figure 2 did not happen overnight. I sought out diverse mentors and actively nurtured my relationship with them over time. A “truth” I have found to be accurate my entire career is that you cannot surge relationships; you must grow them organically. So, I urge you to cultivate your mentorship relationships, ensure their roots take hold, and continuously care for them to ensure they grow strong. I promise that it will be worthwhile. My mentorship connection with disparate individuals helped me become a far better leader than I would have by relying solely on mirror images of myself.
As I contemplated the sources I sought mentorship from, it drove me to likewise think about those I mentored. I asked myself if I was as much a part of the problem as a mentor as I was as a protégé. Fortunately, the self-assessment for mentors remains unchanged for protégés. However, to be more thorough, I added an additional baseline column that required me to answer whether the person had ever worked for me. If the answer was yes, I annotated the number of years they had. I’m unsure what “perfect” looks like, but the result of that second phase was much healthier.
I was surprised by the number of people who had never worked for me. I had protégés outside our branch (and even our Service, which is a benefit of time in the joint force). There were representatives from both genders and most ethnicities. Just as importantly, these individuals came from less “objective” criteria: they had a variety of family backgrounds and upbringings, represented a spectrum of religious and political beliefs (or non-beliefs), and many had jobs I had never had. I was learning and benefiting from the exchanges in each of those relationships, whether as a mentor or mentee. The “mentoring up” was happening, and I do not think I had even realized it in the moment.
Mentors are only one piece of the puzzle. I also similarly analyzed who I went to for advice: not mentors, but peers and subordinates. Who served as my “trusted agents”? Again, were they like me, and, thus, more likely to think the same way, which can result in confirmation bias in decision-making? Or, were they challenging me to think about the issue from a different perspective? I learned much about empathy through this process.
All of this can be summed up in a series of questions I challenge you to ask yourself. Sketch it out using the tool above or develop your own system. Either way, leverage the disciplined step of reducing it to writing to allow yourself to see the reality better and empowering yourself to improve. When it comes to mentorship, whom do you pick as a mentor? Do they challenge you or simply act as a cheerleader? Do they provide answers or ask you more questions to help frame your thinking? And, remember to challenge your protégés. Who are their other mentors? Do you challenge them about those choices?
Immutable characteristics do not automatically make a person a better or worse mentor for you, just as yours do not automatically make you a great mentor for a protégé. They are just one (or more) of the multiple characteristics, traits, and experiences that empower us to help others see their challenges differently. And that usually exposes them to a broader set of solutions, which is the true power of diversity in mentorship. But, you cannot leverage it unless you know what it looks like. TAL
MG Berger is the Deputy Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Army’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps at the Pentagon.
LTC Swords is the Strategic Engagements Officer in the Strategic Initiatives Office, Office of the Judge Advocate General at the Pentagon.
Notes
1. Mentorship may seem like a more recent concept, but its roots are at least 2,700 years old. Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey, written in the late eighth or early seventh century BCE, is credited with the term’s origin and its underlying concept. See David Marquet, The Original Mentor Failed – What Went Wrong?, Forbes (Jan. 12, 2017), https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidmarquet/2017/01/23/the-original-mentor-failed-what-went-wrong. Therein, Odysseus asks his close friend, Mentor, to care for his son, Telemachus, and his palace while he fights in the Trojan War. Stamatia Dova, “Kind Like a Father”: On Mentors and Kings in The Odyssey,
Harv. univ. Ctr. for Hellenic Studs. (Nov. 2, 2020),
https://chs.harvard.edu/stamatia-dova-kind-like-a-father-on-mentors-and-kings-in-the-odyssey. In this arrangement, Mentor was to advise and teach Telemachus by providing prescient counseling and coaching during the duration of Odysseus’s absence. Id. Odysseus remains at war from Telemachus’s infancy to his early adulthood. Id. During this time, Mentor fails in his endeavor. See Marquet, supra. However, disguised as Mentor, the goddess, Athena, eventually steps in and provides the requisite positive mentorship to get Telemachus successfully back on track. Id.; Dova, supra. A subtle point not to be missed: Mentor was essentially a mirror image
of Telemachus, and that relationship failed. Athena had some different
characteristics and helped lead Telemachus to success. Let this serve as
a reminder that not all mentors are created equally, and just because an
individual acts as a mentor does not mean they are the
right mentor for your developmental needs.
2. See, e.g., David Rock & Heidi Grant, Why Diverse Teams are Smarter, Harv. Bus. Rev. (Nov. 4, 2016), https://hbr.org/2016/11/why-diverse-teams-are-smarter.
3. The Benefits of a Mentoring Relationship, Univ. of Southampton, https://www.southampton.ac.uk/professional-development/mentoring/benefits-of-a-mentoring-relationship.page (last visited June 14, 2023).
4. U.S. Dep’t of Army, Doctrine Pub. 6-22, Army Leadership and the
Profession, tbl.6-3 (31 July 2019) (C1, 25 Nov. 2019).
5. See Matt D’Angelo, How to Find a Mentor, Bus. News Daily (Feb. 21, 2023), https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/6248-how-to-find-mentor.html.
6. See Laurence Bradford, 8 Tips for an Amazing Mentor Relationship, Forbes (Jan. 31, 2018), https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurencebradford/2018/01/31/8-tips-for-an-amazing-mentor-relationship/?sh=72d394c21e2c.