Don’t Get Corrupted By Your Mentors
This is another post on mentorship and how the illusion of absolute power can corrupt relationships between mentor and mentee. I’ve written before about advice and knowing when and from whom to receive advice. Recently, I remembered a situation that I want to share with you all about the naysayers who mistake their negativity for positivity, and for encouragement.
“Earlier on in my career, I made the mistake of allowing people to be my mentors without my permission.”
What that means is that I did not ask them to take on that role and they never asked me. It was something that we just fell into without actually spending real time getting to know each other. There was indeed reverence, but there was zero compatibility and that ended up being the first and final nail in a coffin that has relegated those people in my life to the outskirts. It could have been avoided, but because it wasn’t I learned a lot about myself and what I need when motivation is low and stress is high.
The biggest issue I experienced was with what I call “Controlling Naysayers”. They by all means do not mean to tear you down, but that is what they do by rejecting who you are as well as tying your actions to their own sense of the world, something not many of our mentors have a secure hold on. We have to remember that everyone is in a point in their life where they are learning a lesson and that someone being older does not mean all possibility of learning is done. In the end, the person I was being mentored by at the time made some folks who cared about me nervous. They cared more about what other people would think of me and them, since they were tied to me. This is not what I needed in my life at the time and the level of insecurity (read: distrust) that builds when the level of understanding between people shrinks is astounding.
Let’s bring in two scenarios that involve associates of mine:
- A friend wins a prestigious award for her work. She gets an email from someone who considers himself to be an elder in her, someone whose opinion really matters to her. In an email, instead of congratulations, a chastisement for her work because it comes off as her “selling out” and not creating work with the same rigor as she used to. It’s as though the claim was that she watered down her own abilities in order to win this award. Needless to say, the relationship no longer exists.
- Another friend shares work with his mentor who has been very supportive of him for years. They get into a disagreement, not an argument but a disagreement about something very simple involving their mutual craft. The disagreement is considered offensive to the mentor who demands an apology where one is not needed. An apology is not given and the mentor angrily discontinues their relationship because her mentee has proven himself to be “disrespectful” and “condescending” toward her. This is after years of building a relationship.
“These situations sound less like mentorship and more like bullying.”
Check out this awesome performance by Gabriel Royal in the NYC subway.
comments
