Full-time Mentorship
Good mentorship is one of my favourite perks of a good job.
A supervisor should be critically interested in your growth and actively engaged in helping you develop your career. It’s in their long-term interest that you become capable of doing more with even less supervision, that you start solving things they didn’t even know were problems and exceeding what they even anticipated your role to be. Your development makes their succession planning easier, takes problem-ownership stress off of them and makes more value for the company… which makes them look good.
However, there’s a limit to how much your supervisor can be your life-coach. Your supervisor isn’t the only external perspective on your development you should have. They’re just the mandatory one.
You have to remember that your supervisor is going to have a conflict of interest when discussing things like whether this organization is right for you or if a project is sucking the life out of you. For one thing, if you say no to the deal, they’re likely left holding the bag. For another, they’re likely a little more invested in the game plan than you. They may be putting some things off the table that you shouldn’t.
I think the contract you have from your supervisor is, “I’ll help you develop desirable career skills and I’ll help you figure out how to get the most out of this organization.” What’s unsaid, however, is “I won’t tell you when you could grow faster/more efficiently/more broadly by getting out of Dodge.”
Step one: Start choosing your supervisors as much as the job. Make sure your supervisor is committed to a philosophy of “developing staff.”
Step two: Know their advice isn’t the whole picture.
Step three: Get more advice – find another mentor…or three.
No one person has the whole answer for you. Diversify where you’re getting your advice.
