Jim Bouchard argues that effective leaders must be teachers, coaches, and mentors. A survey found 100% of leaders say mentorship matters, but only 30% actually have a mentor. He outlines how to choose mentors based on genuine interest and competence, not rank, and recommends face-to-face outreach and regular mentoring habits.
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That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. You want to connect with the people you serve? There's no better way than get involved personally. Be a mentor. Be the sensei. Lao Tzu said every journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Well, I'm here to tell you the rest of the journey is just a lot of single steps too. Our format here on One Step is simple. We share one idea, one strategy, to help us become better leaders or to help us face the challenges and issues we face as leaders today, then I'll challenge you to identify one discipline to make this strategy real. I'll explain later. I know you're busy, so let's get started. One of our key strategies is be a dedicated teacher, coach, and mentor. That's what sensei is all about. You know, in the Japanese tradition, sensei is a term that's used to signify a teacher, especially in martial arts. But it's an idea that really has a tremendous and powerful translation over to the leadership space. After all, a sensei really is someone who inspires, empowers, and guides people to be their very best. And isn't that what leadership is all about too? Isn't that what being a leader is all about? And there's no better way to do it than being a mentor. Like I said, one of our key strategies, be a dedicated teacher, coach, and mentor. In our aspiring leaders track, it takes this shape. Find the right master. And that's exactly what we're talking about, finding a great mentor. And we have a survey tool here at the Sensei Leader Movement. We call it our SL15, and we've polled hundreds, probably thousands of leaders all over the world. And we've always asked some form of this question: How important is a mentor to your career and your development as a leader? You know, 100%. Have responded either important or very important. 100%. We've never had any negative results in that poll. Now for our aspiring leaders track, we have another— well, we have a follow-up question to that. We say, do you have a mentor? Only about 30% say they do. And then for experienced leaders, or in our Sensei in the C-Suite track, we ask, are you actively mentoring someone right now? And the results are exactly the same. About About 30%. There's, there's no nice way to say it. That's disgusting. That's something we've got to change. And believe me, before the end of a workshop, I insist that somebody at least walk over to somebody in this room and find a mentor, or find someone to mentor yourself. You know, if you don't have a mentor, get one. If you're not mentoring someone right now, find someone. And do it. Now let's talk about what that means though. We chose our words carefully for that Aspiring Leaders Track when we said find the right master. Not everyone is well suited to be your mentor. They've got some criteria that you really have to pay attention to. Now the first one I'm going to tell you is find somebody who's truly interested in your success. Now that might sound funny, but a lot of people mentor out of ego. It's sad to say, but it's true. You gotta find somebody who's really gonna put your best interests first. That's what the mentoring relationship is all about. As a mentor, it's not about me, it's about the person that I'm trying to help. So you've gotta find somebody that really is dedicated to helping you as their, as their primary goal. The next step, and it might seem like the most obvious one, is to find someone who has a skill set that matches what you're trying to do. Find somebody who's good at what they do, someone who's really competent. Now, by this I mean you got to be very careful because a lot of people talk the talk and they're not really walking the walk. Find someone who is where you want to go. Find somebody who's done what you want to do. Again, that might sound really obvious, but you've really got to do your homework to make sure that person is genuine, that they, they authentically have the experience that it looks like they might. And when it comes to leadership, you can't base this entirely on performance. One of the sad problems, one of the sad issues in leadership today, and it's, it's a growing problem, believe it or not, is people who get promoted to positions of authority just through performance. Just because you're good at something doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be a good leader. There are a lot of people in positions of authority who are really lousy leaders. And on the other side of the coin, there are a lot of people who are tremendous leaders who never have a position of authority. A lot of these people ought to stay exactly where they are, and a lot of them are really happy to be where they are. I firmly believe that there are only two types of people in this world: leaders and people who refuse to be. But leadership and a position of authority are two entirely different things. Your abilities, your capabilities as a leader has nothing to do with your rank, your title, or position of authority. Like I said, there are plenty of lousy leaders that occupy high positions of authority, and some of your best leaders are right on the front lines. A leader is someone with the ability to attract willing followers and the will to serve them. A leader, especially in this Sensei Leader mold that we're trying to share with you, a leader is someone who can inspire, empower, and guide people to their very best. Like I said, has nothing to do with rank, title, or position of authority. But if you want to become an effective leader, then you've got to find a mentor that has those qualities. Someone who really is inspiring, empowering, and guiding people. Someone who understands leadership through courage, compassion, and wisdom. Those are the type of people you want to find as your mentors, not someone whose only claim to fame is that they happen to occupy that corner office. A lot of people can get to positions of authority because they're clever politicians or because they knocked people down and stepped over the dead bodies. So be careful when you're picking a leadership mentor. Make sure they're, they're a genuine leader and not just somebody who's attained that position either through technical performance alone or because they beat other people's brains in to get there. Now, if you're looking for somebody to mentor, let's talk about that a little bit. I remember doing a workshop one time where, you know, again, I asked the room— I had already done the poll, so I knew what the results were— but again, about 30— these were all leaders in the room, self-proclaimed leaders anyway. And I asked them, you know, how many of you are actively mentoring someone right now? And it was only about 30%. So anyway, I asked them, I asked the people who were mentoring, I said, well, how did you find people to mentor? Well, one guy raised his hand. He was kind of frustrated because he said, you know, I'm really not mentoring anybody right now. I'd love to, but I don't know how to find someone that I can help. Anyway, I asked him, what are you doing right now to find somebody to mentor? And he said, for years I've been sending out emails. Now, you know what the typical response to emails is anyway, right? Even when it's something that's beneficial to us. I don't know. What was I going to say? This is how I lost my hair. I tear my hair out when I hear things like this. But anyway, I asked everybody in the room, I said, "What can you do to help him? How can we find somebody to mentor?" And one woman raised her hand, thank goodness, and she said, "Why don't you just walk across that cafeteria and ask somebody?" Isn't that great? Why don't you get up and go to the next cubicle? And it's interesting because I was just listening to a wonderful Harvard Business Review podcast about communication. And they did an interview. The person that was being interviewed did an interesting survey and found that a huge number of people won't even get up and walk 10 or 20 feet to talk to somebody face to face. They rely on email and text. This is a sad trend we have to change, especially when it comes to something as personal as mentoring. So yes, just get up, you know, get up from that desk and go ask somebody if they need your help. Now you have to have thick skin because you may not be the right match for that person. You might have to, you know, you might have to ask a few people before you find a good fit. As part of my volunteer work, I work with incarcerated youth and I do mentoring with these young people. And that's one of the first things I always tell them. I said, look, we might not be a good match. You can fire me anytime you want and my feelings will not be hurt. In fact, I'll help you find somebody who's a better match if I can. And that's the attitude we have to have if we really sincerely want to help other people as mentors and not just do it to serve our own our own needs or our own egos. Now, one of the most powerful strategies that we've identified, and I'm going to call this a discipline, I'll give you a little sneak peek ahead, as mentors is to mentor somebody who's going to replace you. Mentor somebody who can replace you. Now, to be honest, sometimes in workshops I get a little pushback on that one, and I've heard people say, you know, Jim, I don't want to mentor myself out of a job. I understand that. I understand that. That's a rational fear. I'll counter that by saying, look, if that's the type of organization you're working in, you might want to look elsewhere. Because your skill sets, as your skills, your talents, and your value to the organization improves, your job should never be really threatened. You should find bigger and better things to do. You need to mentor someone to replace you so you can go on to those bigger and better things. But let's put that aside for another episode. Find somebody who you really think can replace you. Find somebody who can really, really take full advantage of your experience, your wisdom, your talents, your skills. Your experiences. I've learned some really powerful lessons that translate so well from my life as a martial artist into, into this world of leadership. And one of the most powerful is how you measure the effectiveness of a sensei. The best are never measured by students who equal his or her abilities, skills, or talents. The best sensei's students surpass, surpass those talents and skills. Isn't that a great way to measure the success of a leader as well? We're not doing it alone. We're leaders because we have the ability to inspire, empower, and guide other people to work with us to a higher cause. So let's wrap it up. If you're new to the show, a discipline is nothing more than the development and cultivation of meaningful and purposeful habits. This means committing yourself to actionable steps, things you can and will carve into your calendar. Don't put these items on your to-do list. There's no difference between a to-do list and a wish list. It's not real until it's on your daily planner in ink. So what can you carve in your calendar to make today's ideas a reality in your life? I want to share with you a couple of disciplines that came from members of the Sensei Leader Movement, either from workshops or they've made comments on any of our online sources. Fortunately, when it comes to mentoring, these disciplines are, are sometimes painfully simple. Don't overcomplicate it. And one of the best— it gets shared in workshop after workshop— if you're looking for a mentor, then carve into your calendar sometime over the next few days that you're going to go and ask for help. You're going to start finding a mentor. Now, the reason I'm saying this is a discipline and not a one-off is because it might take a few tries. So maybe once a week you carve out a little time to go approach somebody and ask them if they'll mentor you. If you're on the other side of the equation and you're looking for somebody to mentor, then again, and on a regular basis, this should be a discipline for anybody in a leadership position, that you're already in the process, the discipline of mentoring someone. I'm going to come back to that in a second. Or you're carving time in your schedule to go and approach people that can possibly benefit from your wisdom and your experience. After that, make sure that you carve time in to review that process, review that relationship, And to look for the next person that you can possibly mentor. I know you only have so much time in any particular schedule, but you always want to actively be looking for the next person. So when that relationship comes to its natural conclusion, you're on to the next. And I said I'd come back to a point just a second ago. One of the nicest disciplines that I've heard in one of our workshops for mentors is to carve time into your, into your schedule to study that process. The best mentors take this process very seriously. And that means, well, it can mean very simple technical disciplines. For example, working on communication skills, particularly listening skills. It can also mean studying and understanding the various differences of the people you might be mentoring. Uh, generation issues, gender issues, being up on current trends and the challenges they face so you can help them bridge these gaps. Now these are just a couple of ideas to get you started. I want to hear what disciplines you come up with too. And make sure you share yours. Post your disciplines in the comments or send me a private message. Your ideas will help others become better leaders too. Hey, get involved with the Sensei Leader Movement. All you need to do is go to thesenseileader.com and subscribe. You'll get a free ebook edition of The Sensei Leader when you do. I really appreciate the time you spent with me today. I'm Jim Bouchard, founder of the Sensei Leader Movement.
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