How can we better mentor our junior personnel?

Your question is one that is pervasive outside of the military as well. When dealing with skilled positions such mine, mentor ship and leadership development are not only difficult, but in many cases left untouched. In my experience, it is paramount upon senior leaders to identify and spotlight those that espouse the values and traits you want to grow within your organization. Start out by pairing (or grouping) these people with others that show potential (seeds.) Let these leaders pass along the right things while quashing the negatives. Educate them and give them the resources needed. Once they have been developed, split them up and have them pair or group with others (seeding the next crop.) Over time, you will have the best of the best; ready to continue the cycle into perpetuity.

A suggestion I was given when I asked this question to a wise counselor of many in my profession was begin by setting some important ground rules. First discuss what mentoring is not:
parenting/eldering
coaching
befriending....

Secondly discuss what it is-
a relationship where both parties benefit, in which particularly at first, one party seems to clearly have more to offer yet it remains mutually beneficial.

There needs to be mutual respect, candor, thick skin and advice needs to be offered by putting the mentee interests first.

The relationship between mentor & mentee has to be both genuine & strategic. I've been fortunate to have great mentors in my military & civilian life. Mentee's need to be mindful of the mentor's time and understand that mentors are not responsible for coming up with solutions to their professional & personal goals or problems. Good military mentor will see value/potential in protégés as people and not force rank as a dictatative tool to guide their protégés. Mentee's need to provide value to their mentors as well. Get to know them personally, suggest ways to help them and never, ever say "can I pick your brain?".

Here's a good article for mentor/mentee's: https://www.amtamassage.org/mentor/Ten-Tips-for-a-Successful-Mentor-Mentee-Relationship.html

Hope this helps!

It starts as planning for mentoring.

We can better mentor our junior personnel by being better senior personnel. I am still a firm believer that if you set the example and you place the needs of your subordinates above your own you will motivate younger Soldiers to be better. I think the problem with our junior personnel is that they are not stupid and don't blindly follow anyone. They are reading the news, look at Soldier media and watching our leaders and seeing the numerous failures of those at the highest levels or our organization and saying that if they are not doing the right thing then why should I? It is very hard to speak on values,beliefs, and doing the right thing when you see in congruent actions from those who are supposed to set the standard. Just my two cents. Great question!

The Brits have a tradition of flipping ranks one day of the year. The lowest rank got the highest rank.

Lead by example and be empathetic.

This a great question. Make it the commander's priority. Have a diagram for mentoring rotation. Make it more than, "Men the cold war is over prepare for asymmetric warfare, who knows what asymmetric warfare means?"

There are very few “mentors” in the AF; a couple times a year SNCOs get pulled up to the front office and told they need to be better mentors. They tell their TSgts and SSgts, they give us card and we have to write our mentor’s name as if this will make more mentors, few weeks go by where everyone acts like they care then it gets forgotten till the next time. The AF promotes based off of individual accomplishments, did you get your CCAF? Did you lead that event? Did you get DG? Did you get a 90+ on your PT test? Are you an active member of AFSA/TOP 3? How many hours did you volunteer for? Did you get the TPS reports done in time? Just about every award that matters for an EPR is an individual award and the hard chargers are those that rack up the most individual accomplishments, they don’t have time to mentor. With the new EPR implementation I don’t see very many people putting much more energy than what they already do in mentoring because if you take care of yourself you will promote faster than if you are the guy taking care of everyone. Ya… ya I know there are exceptions but the fact is they AF as created a me first culture.

There needs to be a way to get away from the me first culture and awards we should recognize individual accomplishments, mentorship and group accomplishments equally.

One thing that I think we need to bring back is the 3rd Lt. rank. Back in the days of long stretches of isolation from command, prospective officers were given a trial run as a 3rd Lt. You were shown the ropes by the command staff and was instructed on each position by an officer or senior enlisted man. If at the end of the tour of duty the command staff didn't think you merited a commission, you were out.