You are deeply indebted to your mentor. It is his wise counsel, perception and support that have made you what you are today.
Without the steady hand on your shoulder, you may not really have been able to move up the corporate ladder so quickly.
And, yet you have now come to a point where you don’t really need your mentor any longer. While you will remain eternally grateful for all the help and support, you find yourself itching to move out of his shadow and into your own.
Well, all good things have to come to an end. It is inevitable, as you cannot actually work with the same mentor all your life.
Not if you really want to grow and move into the front line. For instance, in Shakespeare’s Henry V, Prince Hal has to ultimately repudiate his amusing companion – the devil-may-care giant, Falstaff – when Hal becomes King!
It obviously is time to ‘retire’ the mentor, but the problem is that you two may have become quite close and care about each other. The deep friendship makes you want to protect him from feeling hurt or angry over the apparent ‘rejection’. Not to mention that the parting will be equally distressing for you too.
Protégées outgrow their mentors all the time. There is no choice but to move on, yet the dilemma is that there is a lot at stake with numerous repercussions in store. Distancing yourself will be hard, so here’s how to do it right:
Introspect: Begin by indulging in a deep introspection to objectively assess whether the mentor-mentee relationship has really changed. The warning signs can be varied like you need your mentor’s advice less often or he no longer has anything new to offer or you have actually risen higher than him. It may so happen that the mentor develops a conflict of interest or starts showing increasingly poor judgment that makes you feel both stifled.
A time may even come when his behaviour may actually be setting you back, making him more of a liability!
Clean break: Engage in a forthright but graceful discussion on the lines of, “I have learned a lot from you and thanks to your help I am now ready to take it on my own.” Chances are that the mentor may also harbour the same thoughts leading to a polite, mutual agreement to end the mentorship.
Never ever accuse your mentor of being wrong or outdated. He has helped you a great deal and deserves your respect and appreciation right till the end.
Be honest and communicate that while you are grateful for the support, you do want to expand your horizons and become more successful.
Save friendship: Try to distance yourself purely on a professional level so that you can save the promising friendship. You cannot risk alienating him, especially if he still forms a part of your professional circle. What’s more, many mentors and protégées have successfully moved on to maintain a social relationship.
A prudent step would be to commemorate the moment with, “You have seen me through so much. I would like to celebrate our fruitful achievements now.” The finishing touch would be to honour him with an appropriate gift.
While you may outgrow a mentor, you never actually outgrow the need for mentoring. What you need is to find someone else who is more appropriate for the new challenges and learning curve ahead of you.
Remember that if you have taken care not to break your bridges, you can always go back to the erstwhile mentor if you need a sounding board or even just a sympathetic ear!
To sum up in the words on an expert, “Casting aside a mentor raises very personal questions about character, loyalty and commitment. Everyone faces a time when this must be done. How it is done will leave a lasting mark. To do it well requires grace, inner clarity, the willingness to act decisively and a strong sense of compassion.”
PAYAL CHANANIA
No comments:
Post a Comment