Author and entrepreneur Anthony Tjan talks about how mentors & leaders need to be redefined based on the current crisis of trust in society’s institutions.
Do you have a mentor to help you in your career growth? A mentor is just another word for an adviser, a guide, a guru or a counselor. Decades ago, American politician John C. Crosby said that “Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction.” Having a mentor is having an objective, experienced guide to shorten the learning cycle in any given endeavor.
Do you need a mentor in your job? New York Times best-selling author and entrepreneur Anthony Tjan makes the case that one mentor is not enough, you actually need five. He identifies the five kinds of people you should have in your corner in his article in Ideas.TED.com, The 5 types of mentors you need in your life.
In addition to his thoughts on mentorship, Tjan also looks at the concept of leadership. He reviewed nearly 100 case studies in organizations from all sectors and this led him to challenge leaders to re-frame traditional thinking around how we build our teams, cultures and our people ecosystems. In his 18-minute TEDx talk on Why Leadership and Mentorship Does Not Need to Fail Us, he begins by discussing the current crisis in trust that we are experiencing in all levels of society’s institutions and the impact that the failure of trust has on the workplace. Noting that CEOs currently have a trust factor in the mid 30s, he also tells us that employee engagement has been stagnant at 32-33% over the last decade. He makes the case that leadership has been disproportionately tilted in favor of competence over character and that it is essential for us to rethink what leadership means. It’s a thoughtful discussion worth your time.