Military Mentoring: Explained

COL John McClellan — Tue, 12 Sep 2017 10:22:27 -0400

I recently read a question (on another forum) dealing with mentorship. The poster wanted to know how to create a program to “maximize mentorship opportunities.” As I considered my reply, I thought back to my military time and the enduring officer-leader inclination to “create a program…”

Leadership likes to think in terms of "programs". I, too, thought like this as a young leader. As a lieutenant – I was raised on OPD/NCOPD and I did things like read most of the professional reading list (which I still recommend). Later as a CPT and MAJ, I recall thinking and saying things like, “We’re going to have a strong ‘professional development program’ in this outfit,” and I had a pretty good one going as a Battalion S3, too – reading list, partnership unit (in Germany), staff rides and unit-specific history/legacy. But do these things equate to “mentorship?” Many think of mentorship as a much more personal, one-on-one experience between a senior advisor and a more junior, inexperienced mentee seeking guidance.

So, if mentorship is more personal, is something lost if you try to reduce it to a program? Can mentorship be accomplished in the absence of a formal program? I believe the answer is YES, and I’d like to offer some basic thoughts on how to approach this.

First, practically every interaction you have with your subordinates sets a tone and - as a leadership transaction - contains the opportunity to provide mentorship, or not. Even the most routine interactions display whether we as leaders are cognizant of a mentorship responsibility, and on the other side, if followers are open to it. This is all easily lost in the day-to-day, deadline driven, crisis-management atmosphere that many of us experience in the military and in business. So, I'd start there.

If you have mentor/mentee pairings that are “self-identifying” meaning that they are linking-up all on their own, recognize it, acknowledge it, encourage it, and don’t get in the way! Those choosing these relationships must be comfortable with the other person, and there must be trust there. That’s the only way it works.

Second, consider some basic rules of conduct for your outfit. I called them "flat ass rules" - an expression of the team's shared values, as well as company or unit expectations. Mentor that. Constantly emphasize these FARs with new hires, in meetings, and in your actions. Some of my FARs in my last position (a staff office) were:

· Row well and live!
· Unquestioned engineer expertise/solidarity
· Think two levels up & two phases ahead
· Trust, but verify; assume nothing; check, re-check, check again
· Analysis! (Not e-mail forwarding…)
· No staff work wasted
· Stay calm, carry on!

Another technique I used was to post a whole series of inspirational historical quotes or vignettes in our “cubicle farm”. These included: Standing Orders of MAJ Robert Rogers; Horatius at the Bridge; Invictus; Teddy Roosevelt’s “The Man in the Arena,” and King Henry’s speech at Agincourt (Henry V). If nothing else, your team will be well-grounded in the classics!

Mentors emulate the values and beliefs of the organization. Teaching those by example and with constant reinforcement is perhaps 50% of your "program." Ground everyone ethically and morally!

Third, emphasize and insist on performance counseling. Consider these private sessions a delivery system for mentorship. In the Army, the stated requirement is soldiers monthly, officers quarterly. It sounds good, but in practice it’s very, very hard. As a senior officer, I really worked at this and maybe achieved a 50% execution rate...which was far better than I saw on my left and right. More than just what a subordinate might be doing well or poorly, counseling includes a dialogue on career path expectations and potential choices of future assignments. And, it must include a frank assessment of your people’s character, integrity and promotion potential. I can’t emphasize enough that this really takes effort.

Once you make these things habits in your workplace, then you are ready for the more traditional "programs" like a series of weekly or monthly sessions on technical/professional skills-related topics, branch information briefings, staff-rides, exchanges, or other techniques to develop and cross-train.

Finally, there are professional certifications and "schools" or outside opportunities. An example from my last job: many of my young officers were interested in the "Project Management Professional" course, so we set aside the time, and a group in our office met with a PMP-certified leader/mentor for several weeks to go through the whole course workbook designed to prepare you for taking the written exam. They also learned how to document their work experiences for the "apprenticeship" portion of the requirement. In the end, we got several guys/gals qualified!

What are your thoughts on good mentorship?

Liberty6, over!

Response by LTC Stephen C. made Sep 12 at 2017 10:30 AM

LTC Stephen C. — Tue, 12 Sep 2017 10:30:50 -0400

COL John McClellan, I started BCT on 11NOV69 and the drill sergeant of 1st platoon of D-3-1 at Fort Jackson was SFC Richard DesLauriers. He was a kind and comparatively quiet man, atypical of many BCT drill sergeants. He was in the business of mentoring and counseling eons before the Army formalized the process and was worthy of emulation. He was an extraordinary NCO, and put me on the right path. I think it was his atypical approach to training and counseling that made me listen.
I've tried to find him many times since those days of basic to thank him, to no avail.

Response by MSG Private RallyPoint Member made Sep 12 at 2017 10:38 AM

MSG Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 12 Sep 2017 10:38:54 -0400

I always hated how in the Army we are quick to complete negative counselings yet drag our feet when it comes to developmental counselings. It seems like developmental counseling is one of the first things to go out the window whenever the optempo increases. I have been at duty stations where I never received even an initial counseling. I make it a personal goal to properly counsel Soldiers so that they know what I expect of them and whether or not they are reaching those expectations.

I know many in the Army are lukewarm about MRT, but the MRT competencies have a lot of good tools for improving the way we mentor and counsel Soldiers. I try to incorporate the long-term planning MRT skill into my developmental counseling sessions. It helps both me and the Soldier with developing realistic goals for the next month / quarter.

One thing we can do to give us as leaders more time for counselings is to coordinate with the unit training NCO for dedicated times on the training calendar for counseling sessions.

I agree with your assessment on the importance of mentorship. If we placed as much emphasis on mentorship as we do APFT and MOS training, we would have a much more capable fighting force. As leaders, we should always be grooming one of our subordinates to be able to take over our jobs.

Response by LTC Private RallyPoint Member made Sep 12 at 2017 11:11 AM

LTC Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 12 Sep 2017 11:11:46 -0400

IME, mentorship was much more personal and informal than anything that could be included in a program. While OPD classes and other leadership training were valuable, and you certainly pick up good traits simply by observing the great example set by good leaders, to me that was more education than mentorship. Not every commander I had was someone I considered a mentor, though I learned from all of them. Likewise, while I tried to develop all my subordinate officers, I don't believe all of them would consider me a mentor.

There was something more personal and one on one about mentorship. And most of the mentoring didn't take place during duty hours. It was more like conversations that occured late at night when the cimmander and I were finishing some late task, and found ourselves alone in the HQ. discussions involved all sorts of leadership topics, often with the mentor sharing much more of his internal thought process of how he approached a problem and came to a decision than he would normally share with everyone during a busy day. Or maybe it was a story or two he shared from his career while waiting at an airport for a flight, or some other opportunity where we found ourselves alone with some time to kill.

I learned many of the philosophical underpinnings of leadership in this way, seen through the eyes of someone who was excelling at a higher level than I was at, and therefore had a much deeper perspective of the challenges I was facing. Perhaps because this is how I was mentored, it was also how I tended to mentor certain officers.

I believe there is also a personal connection aspect to the mentor-mentored relationship. There wre just certain officers that seemed more eager to learn, more eager to dig into the finer points of being a leader than others. They would ask the probing questions, push the discussion, challenge my positions, which caused a deep examination of the topic at hand. Now, perhaps there is an unfair element to that. Is it fair to spend extra time with some officers than others? Should I have, in fact, created a program that shared all my "nuggets of wisdom" with everyone? Perhaps. But IME that was neither practical nor effective. There is a qualitative difference between having a battalion OPD, (though a lot can be shared that way) and having a one on one discussion (not a counseling session) that generates more organically.

I learned many things from every senior officer I worked for but I consider very few as mentors. To me, there was something more to mentorship than simply education and the sharing of experience. There was an intangible factor that took the senior officer from a respected senior to a mentor.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Sep 12 at 2017 11:44 AM

SFC Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 12 Sep 2017 11:44:53 -0400

I believe many leader's, especially NCO's in the Army feel as though in order to be an effective mentor, that they have to be a complete asshole so that the subordinates listen. Finding that ''middle ground'' in leadership is extremely challenging, for me at least. Maybe some of us have a superiority complex and demand a certain level of respect, I don't know. My very first supervisor out of basic training was a complete jerk, and I could not stand him. However, I listened to him when he spoke. As far as a mentor, he was useless and had many personal problems of his own. Seemed as though he targeted me from day one and was always trying to find a reason to bust me for something.

So, after many years of practice and observations I think I have hashed out some great leadership/mentorship. Comes down to being that ''out front'' NCO and trying my best to motivate my minions to the best of my ability. I just wish every soldier had an outstanding attitude and gave a damn, like I do. But, we are never that lucky. So, should leader's not give as much effort on mentoring the soldiers with the poor attitudes and don't want to listen or be there? Some soldier's no matter how bad you try to listen to their issues, and mentor them they have some underlying personal things going on behind the scenes that they do not share. It's a toss up. Why spend most of my time trying to motivate the soldiers that don't care, when I could be placing most of my effort into the one's that have that desire to lead and be a career soldier?

Response by COL Vincent Stoneking made Sep 13 at 2017 10:20 AM

COL Vincent Stoneking — Wed, 13 Sep 2017 10:20:46 -0400

Well, I did an epic reply yesterday and had to hurry to get to work. I'll try to be more brief today. But it seems that I'm seeing my hot button topics first thing in the morning now!

A few thoughts on the topic. Any mentorship "program" is doomed to fail. You can have lots of great leadership development programs and we do throughout the Army. However, a mentorship relationship is something altogether different and very idiosyncratic. It requires a number of factors to all come together just right. Off the top of my head:
A mentor who
is willing to be one.
genuinely likes the mentee.
is thoughtful/insightful (well, it really helps, anyway, even if not 100% "required").
is good enough at priority management (time cannot be managed....) to make it happen.
is (preferably) at least one, if not two, levels above the mentee in organizational structure.
is (preferably) not in the mentee's direct chain.
is genuinely successful and regarded as such.
is relatively stable, at least for a while. (geographically)
has held a career path similar to the one the mentee might travel. (relevance)
and the big, controversial one,
sees genuinely exceptional potential in the prospective mentee.
A mentee who
is willing to be one.
genuinely respects to mentor.
can free up time for the relationship.
and the big, controversial one,
has the intellect to apply to the relationship.

The upshot of the above is that it
1) takes a lot of time & effort on both parties parts
2) requires a certain amount of chemistry
3) has a very organic nature

Any attempt to make the above into a program will turn into a check the box exercise, or remain undone in practice. Again, the army does a lot of great leadership training & education. However, mentorship is different in kind from training & education. It is also different in kind from advice.

And to hit up the first, obvious, objection: But my first PSG/BN CSM..... Yes you learned a lot from them and perhaps they were great people & leaders (SFC Brown[1], my first PSG, to this day remains one of the most key people in my professional development as a leader). However, what you learned from them was how to fill a SPECIFIC ROLE and from a SPECIFIC PERSPECTIVE. Your PSG didn't teach you what you needed to know to be an effective field grade, for the simple reason that they hadn't walked that path themselves. At best (and it's pretty darn good...), they taught you what others perceive as an effective field grade. They may well have given you some tools to advance your career, but they did not GUIDE it, for the simple reason that they haven't walked that path themselves. They may well have observed many successful and unsuccessful people come through your current (and future) roles and had observations and drawn conclusions about what made those people successful. And those observations and conclusions are really valuable. They are, however, different in kind from this of someone who has held your current and next two jobs.

So now that I've pissed off at least 25% of RP, I'll wrap up with the highlights, and maybe get myself up to 50%. Mentoring is hard, and it is different from training or education. Not everyone can do it, not everyone should do it, not everyone can get it, not everyone will get it. It is a succession planning tool and should be used as such. It's not my fault that the military (and most of the civilian world, btw) uses it as a synonym for "giving advice". Failure to define terms and substitute wishes/preferences for thinking is what has got our society and organizations to the point they are at today. See also "profession" and "professionalism" and "character" and.....

Well, pot stirred.

[1] Ironically, I do consider SFC Brown one of my first two most influential mentors. The wrinkle is that SFC Brown had previously been MAJ Brown, had been a combat arms Officer, and held typical LT-MAJ positions successfully. Retrospectively, he also had a masterful way of letting me change my mind from the stupid plan of action I had to instead doing something that might work. He was my first real introduction to the concept of managing up.

Response by COL John McClellan made Sep 13 at 2017 10:30 AM

COL John McClellan — Wed, 13 Sep 2017 10:30:53 -0400

Great feedback - keep 'em coming! Thanks for the interest in this topic, all!!

Response by SSgt Boyd Herrst made Oct 4 at 2017 3:45 PM

SSgt Boyd Herrst — Wed, 04 Oct 2017 15:45:07 -0400

There may be a Drill Sergeants association that you can contact him.
Because of privacy concerns. They may have to contact him if he is in their registry. Let him know you’d like contact. Then they can pass your contact info after you sign a privacy release . If he wants he can contact you or he can tell them he prefers not to. They may not give your info to him until he says it’s ok for contact. They may want to protect you also. I’m just surmising ... I hope this helps.

Response by SSgt Boyd Herrst made Oct 4 at 2017 5:05 PM

SSgt Boyd Herrst — Wed, 04 Oct 2017 17:05:40 -0400

When I started in the AF Reserve I had some really good leaders. It seemed they were all trying to mentor me to be a upstanding Airman. I graduated basic as an A1C(E-3). Took a by-pass test and scored high on that. They said they good see I had good leadership qualities, they wanted to help me strive to perfect them.
One old TSG told them to back off and let me work up gradually. Give me a push occasionally but don’t rush the Airman or he may put to much push to the floorboard and burn out.. I was eager to learn and I think he had a good point there. I appreciated that. ( found he had a Airman(A1C) that he was meantoring and he didn’t want me to pass him. Well it turned out I already had.. we had 4 volumes in our 622XO CdCs now it’s 3m
I believe. (Gen classification for cook?).
He was still on V I. and I was on V 3 already. I wanted to get done so I could
Go to ed center and find some more career field CDCs that relate, Baker themn was a separate Career field yet I could work as a baker .. they’d assign me as TD
To that job which I’ve done, it’s not hard
Just need to be good at fractions and time mgt.(what to start first and then
Multi-task.. getting a few things at same time. I’d have pie dough working and I’d use a med kettle to cold mix the fruit with sur-gel. (I put ice for machine, sprinkle salt and mix hard to get really cold then
Put in a cooler container and set aside.
Put the fruit juices in that kettle and sur-gel and mix really good so powder is dissolved and it it gets good and thick to how it should be. I then get pie dough and measure /cut and roll out. I made a lot of dough and just made tops and bottoms same weight. So much simpler.
I had 30 pies with tops, 20 with out so I had 80 doughs to get rolled out. I had streusel I had made up the night before in
a pan i!n the baker’s 3 door fridge. I was at mall baker supply store and saw a lattice top cutter. This one was metal. It cost me $5. I fidn’t have time to wait. What I likevit had a NSF(nat’l Sanitation Foundation )label on package and it was stamped onto the cutter. So I rolls my doughs out and cut some lattice tops, layed those in-between pastry paper with some flour so they didn’t stick. I got my shells filled put the tops on and set on rack when I got all those and pies with regular crusts done I egg-milk washed
The crusts on tops and did the pies with struesael on top snd got them in the ovens. Timer set, oven work’g Clean up
work on biscuits for bkfst. Roll out dough
Onto sprayed sheet pans.. lay my special
Biscuit cutter stick with measurements on top of layed out dough.. cut lengthways and then crossways.. there! Not round but they’ll eat them. There are very few left over. I put on rack and get some started for early breakfast.. two pans ..

I ‘m training a new baker myself and Cook
Was my AFSC.. minor nuance ! Yeah, i’m Bragging on myself. Later at my first base in the regular AF. I was picked to test to
Receive Proficiency pay $30 a month. That added to my base pay was same as getting Sgt. Pay then , I just didn’t get to wear the rank. I loved being a leader.. it’s work ! It had downs and ups. I learned from downs. It helps you become better
So you don’t repeat the mistake. If you don’t make mistakes how can you learn ?
May not be true in every case but most you do.. that’s why you have a note book and pencil. a small rule helps too.
When I had an OJT cook and things look like they are getting stressed... take a break ! Both of you! Get a short beverage. and talk.. get off work talk a few minutes .. when calmed down go on back and get ‘er done !
I will have a off duty beverage with The Airmen.. (saying as a NCO now). I tell them this doesn’t mean it’s buddy time at work. WE WORK AT WORK, We PLAY AT PLAY! sure a little levity is fine but we need to focus on our job first and foremost. Time to break comrades !

Response by 1SG Ken Rossi made Oct 5 at 2017 3:08 AM

1SG Ken Rossi — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 03:08:12 -0400

I was always led to believe a major part of my role as a leader was to be a mentor. As a platoon sergeant in both infantry and logistics units i felt it was job to mentor the young officers who were assigned as my platoon leaders. I provided guidance and council helped them to understand that it was their platoon, I was there to help them run it and, in the process, help them to become good officers. I had the same relationship with a former company commander who I worked with in a different setting (he was still my 'boss') but we had great conversations about what he might do with his career, he was still relatively early and i was close to the end. Our relationship continued after my retirement as he still called for advice and to discuss where he should go. It was a relationship (which all mentor-mentee associations are) based on mutual trust, understanding and a commitment to become better. Mentor programs are fine but the unofficial relationship that can develop can be so beneficial to a career. And yes, the junior in rank but senior in experience can be a mentor to those senior in rank. I still mentor both today as I am a senior person in my department in experience but can be junior in rank to those who are far less experienced and just like with the young officers I worked with, I help, provide advice and guidance to those who have been promoted ahead of me, Mentoring is a key part of being a leader regardless of where you find yourself.

Response by Sharon Lee made Oct 19 at 2017 2:23 PM

Sharon Lee — Thu, 19 Oct 2017 14:23:19 -0400

Life Coaching...

Response by PO3 Peter Carr made Jan 10 at 2018 6:52 AM

PO3 Peter Carr — Wed, 10 Jan 2018 06:52:05 -0500

One thought that I would present is that being a good mentor is not a skill that some people possess as a personality trait or part of what I would call "personal character". In my experience you either have this skill innately, you learn it from others around you over time through observation or you fake it. When someone is faking it, normally it is fairly painful to watch.

Response by SGT Mark Estes made Nov 18 at 2018 11:47 PM

SGT Mark Estes — Sun, 18 Nov 2018 23:47:23 -0500

Thanks for sharing