Comments on: Who Mentored You? http://www.nonprofituniversityblog.org/2010/04/who-mentored-you/ A blog for the business of nonprofits Tue, 22 Nov 2011 18:39:53 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Andrea Laine http://www.nonprofituniversityblog.org/2010/04/who-mentored-you/comment-page-1/#comment-3658 Andrea Laine Mon, 03 May 2010 16:12:44 +0000 http://www.nonprofituniversityblog.org/?p=414#comment-3658 To begin, I'm sorry for your loss. It's clear that your dad was a great man. We often think we need to do BIG things to achieve greatness, yet as your story illustrates, simple acts of encouragement and kindness from one to another are often the greatest gifts of all. You make an excellent point in that mentoring is what we do for the sector, not our current organizations. Like you, my experience (over 20 years) has been that too few leaders in the NFP sector bother to mentor, perhaps believing that they did not know how or it would take too much time. If we care about building and/or sustaining excellence we need to care about mentoring. Today, mentoring is among my favorite undocumented job responsibilities. Personally, I find it intrinsically rewarding. And the deeper I get into studying leadership development, the more I see mentoring as an extension of every leadership role. I surely would have appreciated having a mentor early in my career. Thanks for your thoughts. To begin, I’m sorry for your loss. It’s clear that your dad was a great man. We often think we need to do BIG things to achieve greatness, yet as your story illustrates, simple acts of encouragement and kindness from one to another are often the greatest gifts of all.

You make an excellent point in that mentoring is what we do for the sector, not our current organizations. Like you, my experience (over 20 years) has been that too few leaders in the NFP sector bother to mentor, perhaps believing that they did not know how or it would take too much time. If we care about building and/or sustaining excellence we need to care about mentoring.

Today, mentoring is among my favorite undocumented job responsibilities. Personally, I find it intrinsically rewarding. And the deeper I get into studying leadership development, the more I see mentoring as an extension of every leadership role. I surely would have appreciated having a mentor early in my career. Thanks for your thoughts.

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