Hollywood has been using mentorship as a predictable, romanticized trope for years; Luke Skywalker had Obi Wan Kenobi, Daniel-san had Mr. Miyagi, and Harry Potter had Dumbledore. And who doesn’t love to think there might be some unrecognizable potential, something very special in ourselves that only a wise mentor could help us find?
It’s also easy to assume that your boss is meant to fill the mentor role for you. After all, they hired you. Most likely they are older than you, and they’re definitely more experienced. And they picked you out of the hundreds of applicants, after probably only meeting with you once or twice. They saw something that was a little more special in you than in the rest.
But what a mentor’s role is, and how they’re found, has changed. There’s not much “grooming” of young, new hires for the boss’s own position these days, when the average stay at a company for employees is now 4.6 years (according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics). In the past, those mentorships were really apprenticeships, where someone showed you the ropes and skills of their own craft.
