My CEO Life

I received the following question from on of the readers.

“Did/Do you have a mentor? What is your opinion on the concept mentoring in the business environment?”

I do have a mentor and it is my father. Now the reason he is my mentor is that he has run large businesses, is very level headed, is able to tell me to pull my head in (and get away with it) and has a passion for customer service. He was a very good Chief Executive Officer who has a great track record of leadership in business.

I think it is important to have a mentor of some sort. I think it gives you an outlet that probably does not exist in the business and allows you to run ideas past a neutral person who, if they are good, will tell you straight what they think.

I think that another source of mentoring type qualities can come internally (in some situations) and that depends on the quality of the team at the top. We are lucky that many of the people on my team i trust implicitly and we have very open relationships between us. That allows key issues to be shared and addressed. This may not always be the case but is great is you can make it happen.

The last comment on mentoring that i would like to make is around the topics a mentor can cover. A type of mentor i have been experimenting with is a life coach. It is all about work life balance. We are not all guru’s in everything so taking the time to talk to someone else who can help balance work and life is great.

In short – you will be much better off with a mentor than without. Just make sure it is a good one.

Actually … another thought. In putting in place a mentor, it is important to structure the relationship to include monthly meetings with key topics of discussion. Use them as a consultant. The structure will bring results.

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