Mutual Growth: The Mission of Mentorship
“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.”
This Chinese proverb perfectly encapsulates what it takes to be a successful mentor or mentee. You are human, and that means that you have a set of unavoidable limitations. To admit this fact is not to admit defeat. Rather, this humility is the only way to make any fruitful progress.
For both mentors and mentees, humility must be the starting point. Mentees need the humility to pay attention to the experience and wisdom of their mentor. Mentors, on the other hand, should maintain a humble attitude and truly listen to their mentees. If both parties commit themselves to pursuing this humility, the result can be a special one: the mentor/mentee relationship can become a cooperation towards mutual growth.
Iron Sharpens Iron
If I were to offer a commonly held definition of mentorship, it might look something like this: mentorship is the act of listening to and offering advice to another person with the purpose of helping them to move forward through life’s obstacles in a competent and decisive way.
If this aligns with your own idea of what mentorship is, you are absolutely right. At its core, this is the purpose of mentorship. The mentor’s role is to be an attentive ear and a voice of wisdom when the moment calls for it. The mentee’s role is to confide in their mentor and take their advice into consideration.
On its face, this model of mentorship seems like it might be at odds with “mutual growth”. The mentor is someone who has had life experience—they are the ones who are supposed to be speaking into the life of the mentee. They are the teacher, not the student. And yet, as with any human relationship, mentorship is not that simple.
Throughout this series, we have emphasized the vital importance of humility in a mentor/mentee relationship. Above all other qualities, the mentor must first have humility. This humility will allow them to listen well and to offer advice at the moments when it will be most helpful. It is also what enables a relationship of mutual growth to flourish.
It has often been remarked that the best way to learn something is to teach it. Teachers tend to have an especially strong grasp of a particular subject matter because they have rehearsed it countless times, refining the language that they use to make their lectures and discussions more and more accessible. Humble mentors who are always looking to learn will constantly be searching for new insights and perspectives. And as they undergo the challenging but rewarding process of guiding and teaching their mentee, they will find themselves stretching and growing in unforeseen ways. Besides the growth that comes with the trial by fire that is teaching, mentors can learn from the unique experience and perspective of their mentee.
As the two make the journey together, each sharing their own successes and failures at their different stages of life, they build one another up. They are, as the book of Proverbs states, like iron sharpening iron.
