Takeaways from this Blog:
- Leaders make good Mentors and Consultants/Coaches.
- Leaders need good Mentors and Consultants on their Team.
- Mentors and Consultants can be good Leaders, and probably have been good Leaders, but that is not a sure thing so be careful picking Mentors and Consultants to work with.
- There are 5 times more Mentors and Consultants on the prowl than there are Leaders in need.
- Leaders, Mentors, and Consultants can all be trained to be better at their jobs, if they are active, work at skills improvement, and don’t stop learning new techniques and ideas.
Standout Mentors
Have you heard it said that every good Leader has had 5 “Standout Mentors” in his or her life? As you get older this list may experience some turnover but it is most likely the Mentors in your life that really made an impression showed up in the first 45 years, and if you follow my book 5 AT A TIME, a leadership self-help guide to planning your Life and Career 5-years at a time, those are the first 9 Holes of Life and the first half of you 18 Holes of Life.
I am about to start Hole #16 but my “Standout Mentors” all showed up before Hole #10. I’ll just give you my list to prod your own thinking—it is a fun exercise:
1. My grandfather who was a farmer – he taught me the value of hard work and honesty long before I was a teenager.
2. My dad who was a farm machinery dealer and WWII veteran – he taught me the value of honoring the deals you make and 24/7 customer service.
3. My cousin, older by 3 years – who was fun and a great role model.
4. A Minister for a few years after we were married – his counselling held our marriage together for now 53 years.
5. My first real boss at DOW – who taught me what stretch goals were about, how to take risk, much about leadership and building confidence in myself.
These “Standout Mentors” were all older than me, I was around each of them for several years through many diverse experiences, and in my case, they were all male. Unfortunately, they have all been gone for several years and I miss talking to them! They were all leaders in their field and in their own right. I would not have been as successful in Life and Career without their guidance and inspiration, and I would not be the Leader I am today without their helping hands.
Leaders Need Good Mentors and Consultants on their Team. Mentors with experience and intuition are invaluable to good Leaders, and if you are lucky the best Mentors give the support naturally without a cost. Their payday is usually in seeing you be successful and growing as a standout Leader.
Consultants are also important but usually provide a particular functional skill and come with a price tag, but I have said in other articles, they are well worth it. I have specifically mentioned consultants or contractors who can help you with legal matters, intellectual property matters, accounting and tax, finance and fund raising, human resources and employment law, insurance, and marketing strategies. Hiring good consultants allows you to keep your eye on the prize: your product and service and the strategic, tactical, operational, and contingency plans you build, along with your Management Team and organization, to carry out your Mission Statement and Business Plan.
Leadership Training
In the interest of Lienhart Leadership Consulting, my consulting company, I don’t want to leave out Leadership Training as an important consulting area. You can be trained to be a Leader and a really good Leader with the characteristics, practices, and techniques which I discuss in the series of twelve videos on Leadership I have posted at www.bradlienhart.com and the Lienhart Leadership Consulting you tube channel. Make a list of the “Leadership Best Practices”, set your priorities starting with Planning, Communications, and Measuring, and work hard to get better. A Business Coach can be a big help in a structured way (for a specific period of time) to help you strengthen your Leadership skills, to critique your strengths and areas needing improvement, and to help you build a score card. This usually all translates into a better business leader, building a stronger organization with the right people in the right seats on the bus, and a stronger growth outlook for your business (good coaching, better leadership, equals a stronger ROI).
There are Five Times more Mentors and Consultants looking to be of help than are needed (some people would say that number is 50 times not 5 times). When you want to be involved, when you want to be relevant, and often when you are looking for a job or your next company to start, you do what? Offer yourself as a free resource = a Mentor, or a fee- based resource = a business coach or consultant. It doesn’t mean that you are any good at being a Mentor or a Coach, it’s just someplace to start to try to get your foot in the door. “Buyer beware”, there is a lot of used merchandise on the market, and a bad experience with a Mentor or a Coach/Consultant can really leave a bad taste in your mouth.
North Carolina has been growing like crazy for the last 10 years with net imports of 100,000 residents per year—making us the 9th largest state in the country, and we all know NC is a great place to live and to start a new business—ranked 5th in the country for a place to find a job. 65% of the 100,000 new residents each year are 55 and older, and the ratio is about 50/50 male/female. At age 55 you are about to start Hole #12 of the 18 Holes of Life (Read 5 AT A TIME), and you are now in that Repurposing or Re-engineering period of your life—Some might say “I am planning to start-over or start something new or rethink my future” but with 7 Holes to play you have lots of time to explore many new opportunities.
Surprise: when a lot of these men and women who have had successful careers or even businesses they have left behind, begin to explore their options, it is easy to offer oneself in transition as a prospective Mentor or Coach or Consultant, just to get a foothold. That is not a bad thing, it just means there is an oversupply of spare parts, miscellaneous experts, people with a resume but not really very much successful experience. Again, I end with “Buyer beware”—as a Leader you need a Mentor who has been a Leader, a Coach or Consultant who has been or is a Leader. It is important to shop around to vet these people with a couple good references, preferably someone you know, and then do a test run or two before accepting an offer or placing an order.
Authored by Brad Lienhart, CEO, Lienhart Leadership Consulting—check me out at www.bradlienhart.com or email me for more information at lienhartb@yahoo.com. Put me to the test, how do you know that I know what I am talking about?