The Invisible Mentor

Archive for March 1st, 2010

Have you ever been in a situation, where someone said something which validated what you were doing and gave you the encouragement you needed to keep on going? I have been there, and many times I feel as if I am whistling in the dark. I often wonder if people even care about what I am doing or am trying to do. I need validation to let me know that I am on to something, or doing something right. If you have been in this situation, what did you do?

A few days ago I interviewed Alex Brown for this blog, as well as for a project that I am working on for the Canadian Women In Communications. That’s the first video interview I will feature here as  soon as I figure out how to edit it. During the interview, Alex talked about mentors and how she often observed people to see how they operated so that she could learn from them. Many of the mentors she has had were invisible mentors, and I told her that.

She learned a lot by simply observing these people, and there were instances when she approached them and had a conversation to discuss some of what she had observed. So she  practiced invisible mentoring with a twist.

An invisible mentor is a unique leader you can learn things from by observing them from a distance. You many not be among the privileged few who are involved in traditional mentoring relationships, but you can certainly take advantage of the wisdom and knowledge and reap some of the many benefits that mentoring has to offer, if you follow what Alex Brown did.

Application

1. Who are five people who you know, even marginally, who you could learn from. These people could be in your industry, or even at your workplace.
2. Start studying them: see how they operate, how they respond in different situations, how they make decisions, how they interact with others and so on.
3. Invite them out for a coffee and ask them questions, this is invisible mentoring with a twist. They do not even have to know that they are your mentors.

What have you learned that can assist you in your work? What ways can you turn the invisible mentor concept on its head? For more information on invisible mentors read Who Are 5 Unique Leaders You Can Learn Things From?.

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Photo Credit: Apture