the importance of a mentor

I don’t think one can underestimate the importance of a mentor in our working lives.

I have some friends whose bosses fulfil this role and tend to look after them in post.

The first guiding mentor I remember was an elderly lady I met in Castle Headingham when I was working the summer before I went to university as an assistant in the Youth Hostel there. She was a French teacher. I can’t remember how I met her, but she was fun. She must have been in her 50s and we used to go out smoking and drinking together. I guess she was the first older person I met who just seemed so full of life and left an indelible mark on me that I wanted to be like that when I was old.

The second real mentor was a manager in the Children’s Society, actually two of them to be precise, both male. The first introduced me to ‘social work’ style supervision and I never looked back. In teaching at that time there was no real support. I had a very fair and supportive Head of Department in my first school, but we never discussed my professional development in any way. So long as you could control a class and deliver OK results, nobody questioned anything.

The second mentor who I met on a training course and who became a close personal friend really enabled my managerial development. We discussed and debated work issues ad nauseum and I loved it. After my first manager left, I have never had such helpful and challenging supervision again, so there was a void that needed to be filled.

What I feel people need at work is a safe place to discuss practice and to be able to open up about their perceived shortcomings and fears and seek help without feeling that they may be jeopardising their future promotion opportunities.

For a period in my 30s I was utterly devoted to my management of people and put a huge amount of energy in to planning and record keeping. If anything I had to remember that I was not in situ to attempt to nurture everything about their lives. Ultimately I got disillusioned with it. I felt some of my charges exploited and were allowed to exploit the excellent working terms and conditions they benefitted from. The service user appeared to be second to their personal wellbeing. I wasn’t sure about that. Public service to me is what it says on the tin – service to the public.

As I have got older I feel less inclined to take that responsibility. In many ways it is more rewarding to make a positive intervention sat at your desk amongst colleagues; to comfort when someone is crying, to suggest ways forward when all is flagged as doom and gloom.  It enhances peace and equanimity.