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Be a Mentor

We can all thank Homer for giving us Mentor, a character in his epic tale The Odyssey, who personifies that relationship where hindsight, insight, and foresight often are passed from the older and wiser to the younger and less experienced.

We all need mentors in our lives. Sometimes they are grandparents or older family members, a teacher or college professor, or a colleague that knows the ropes and can help us learn them, too. Whoever a mentor may be in a given situation, we need them both personally and professionally.

And each time you delegate a task, you have the opportunity to mentor someone. You don’t have to assign any official labels to it, or make a formal announcement that you’ll now be “mentoring” your staff.

When you set expectations at the onset of delegation, you have an opportunity to mentor. When you empower your employees to develop solutions and solve problems, you have an opportunity to mentor. When you hold regular follow-up sessions to monitor the delegated task, you have an opportunity to mentor.