Where Have All The Mentors Gone?

Where have all the mentors gone? 

This is something I’ve been thinking about lately, especially because I’ve seen the younger generation struggling with so many issues around communication, team building, leadership and even isolation because they don’t know where to turn.

It used to be that mentorship wasn’t something you actively had to think about. 

You graduated from high school, college or graduate school and you found a job and - like magic - you found your mentor. 

Usually your mentor was your boss, a supervisor, a colleague or someone years ahead of you. They were already assigned to help you and were there to generously show you the ropes. You were grateful for them - but let’s be honest, you kind of just took for granted they’d be there because it was the natural order of things. 

Mentorship was simply something that was built into the system of getting a job once you were done with school. 

Now, that doesn’t mean that all your mentors were great. 

In fact, you likely remember the mentor who taught you what not to do by their actions as much as the great mentors who could lend a wise hand to your growing career. 

Personally, I had some great mentors. 

These mentors may have been the first people who believed in me or saw that spark and drive and gave me the rope I needed to try on different things.

I had mentors when I graduated from college at my first job at Motorola. I had mentors when I became a trial lawyer in Chicago. And particularly after law school, my mentors were instrumental in teaching me everything I needed to know for my career - and in many ways, how to interact with people on a daily basis. 

I relied on each of my mentors to teach me what I needed to know to build success. 

My colleague, Paul, would red-pen my legal briefs and taught me about courtroom procedures. My boss and later law partner, Glenn, taught me where to sit in a courtroom, how to build a book of business, everything about trial advocacy and not giving a damn.

I adopted philosophies from my mentors, I learned skills, I had clear direction and I knew I had a safe place to land when I made mistakes. 

I’ll be honest - I probably have no clue how hard life might have been if I didn’t have mentors to rely on. 

But today’s Generation Z and some millennials truly know what it’s like to have to work and build a career (or business) without a mentor to learn from. 

While people like me have been working from home long before the pandemic, everything I needed to know about growing a business, discipline and structure all came from my early years working with mentors.

I could take all of the online resources about selling, marketing and building a business and put them to work because I already understood what it meant to work with others and how different personalities require different strategies. I already knew what it was like to face hard days and balance work with life. 

I also knew what it looked like to get back up when I fell.

But today, we’re sending our younger adults straight out into the business world - whether they choose freelancing, entrepreneurship, or working for an established business or company without any real support.

This may not seem like a big deal to you if you’re not a Gen Z’er but the truth is that many businesses and business owners struggle because the current generation doesn’t know what it means to complete work on time, be detailed about every single thing you put out in the world and communicate when there’s a problem.

And it’s not their fault. 

You can’t just blame it on this generation being immersed in their phone. 

I recently spoke to an attorney friend of mine in Chicago and he shared that the younger attorneys were overly combative and didn’t really understand the power of building relationships with adversaries. They didn’t realize that being an asshole to another attorney today could have repercussions tomorrow when they needed a simple favor for their client.

And rather than simply disregard my friend as someone of an older generation complaining about a younger generation, I simply posed this question. . . .why should they understand, no one is there to teach them.

While many industries - including the legal industry - still maintain a simple hierarchy and path to growth, we are no longer interacting with one another on a daily basis and instead are being asked to grow in silos. 

Sure the younger generation can do the work - but they have no one to show them what it means to negotiate, learn the skills of communication or understand what urgency really looks like. And while that can create some great opportunities for the self-starter - those who feel unsure or don’t have natural “people skills” are suffering.

They’re also being forced to look for mentors outside the normal structure of work, but they really don’t know who to turn to for the advice they need (assuming they know what that is in the first place). 

And while it may be tempting to disregard this as a problem that doesn’t impact me, the truth is this lack of mentorship is going to impact all of our futures. I personally have struggled with hiring young people because what I assume would be normal in terms of communication - aka, “I’m not sure I can get this done on time”, doesn’t happen. 

I fail to remember that a mentor likely taught me that at work. 

But in the online world, I can be working in Portugal while my VA or other team member might be working in California or Bangkok or wherever. I may not think it’s my job to mentor them because they’re not my employees or my job title doesn’t seem to encapsulate that anymore - but it does.

If we don’t start to think of mentorship as a necessity when we hire, we will be left with individuals who support our business or company who have no skills to do so and will not in the future. 

Mentorship is that important.

And what’s great is that more and more young people recognize it. Last week, I had lunch with an old friend who told me that his son was so grateful he could go into the office to work because he interacted with others and felt he learned more.

My own daughter moved and got a job as a paralegal in a law firm because she felt working remotely left her with a pile of expectations, miscommunications and no one to lean on to help her through the problems. And when she did get help - it was often 8 hours after the problem first arose! 

That's an inefficiency that companies are facing daily. 

But it doesn’t have to be like that.

The truth is that mentorship is going to look different in the future. Those of us in positions where we have had incredible mentors may want to consider offering mentorship to others on a more formal basis - whether it’s through coaching, pro-bono support or something else.

Employers have to consider what mentorship might look like for online workers and how much they invest in ongoing development, leadership and communication.

This stuff matters. It matters to the bottom line and to the future health of our organizations. 

So today, I invite you to consider what this might look like in your organization. How does mentorship work right now and is it effective? Don’t simply assume, but ask and analyze and get a system in place.

This doesn’t have to be another plateau your company stays on that keeps you from reaching higher ground - and it doesn’t have to be a game of whack-a-mole to find structures that work.

Mentorship can include learning skills and effective training, but might also incorporate the following:

• Effective Communication and Goal Setting Skills
• Understanding Their WHY.os - what motivates your team members and sets them apart.
• Leadership development and dismantling mindset blocks 
• Problem Solving Skills

If you or your organization is looking to understand how to build these mentorship infrastructures, let’s connect and create a roadmap today! I provide communication, leadership and team building skills to businesses looking for better ways to achieve their mission and goals. Schedule a no-strings-attached 30-minute strategy session to discuss!

Linda

About the Author: Linda Perry:  Linda a mindset coach & business strategist, speaker and recovering attorney. Linda has helped hundreds of individuals and businesses crack their own success code and achieve their goals, make more money and find balance.

She spent 17 years as a federal criminal defense attorney in Chicago, and left only to pursue her passion in coaching and business strategy after witnessing how much it impacted her life and helped her redefine success. 

With certifications from the esteemed Ford Institute, established by best selling author and teacher Debbie Ford, and from the Levin Life Coach Academy, where she is the lead business instructor guiding life coaches how to build a profitable life coach business -  Linda works with entrepreneurs, business owners, small-to-midsize businesses,  attorneys, and other professional service providers to help them grow bigger.

She is the host of Higher Ground: The Roundtable and Higher Ground Events and regularly is a guest speaker on a variety of podcasts and stages focused on using mindset tools to get further. 

She currently lives in Lisbon, Portugal but works with clients all around the globe.