4 Ways CEOs Can Benefit from a Mentor

By: Keith Krach

While the path to C-level leadership varies among CEOs, they share a common thread: they did not start out at the top. Working their way up through the ranks, joining a new company in a higher position, and starting a new company altogether are some of the ways people get there. Independent of this scenario, these executives will likely draw on the lessons learned and patterns observed early on in their professional development. While experience lays a good foundation, how do these CEOs continue their professional development?

Mounting evidence suggests that an investment in mentoring might be one of the most valuable decisions that a CEO can make. Moving into a C-level position means new challenges to tackle and more decisions to make, which means that continued self-improvement is imperative for CEOs. Fortunately, the same mentor-mentee relationship from which countless leaders have benefited works well for executives with only a few modifications.

Selecting the right mentor is the first challenge. Traditional mentorship programs assign mentors — often arbitrarily — to employees, which is not an ideal approach for a CEO. Executives should instead look to their colleagues and external consultants for recommendations outside of the company. Objectivity is one of the hallmarks of a valuable mentoring relationship.

Carving out time to meet with a mentor — however infrequently — and sticking to that schedule is the other major challenge. CEOs operate on a tight schedule, and stopping for an extra meeting may not always be possible unless a commitment is made. Notwithstanding, vetting out the right mentor and prioritizing regular one-on-one meetings can yield a wide range of benefits. Here are just a few:

1. Obtaining new perspectives

Major changes, such as a profitable merger or a completely new direction in the services offered by a company, can motivate a CEO to seek out a mentor. All of these things are important, and a mentor — someone who has “been there” and “done that” — can provide valuable insight in each scenario. While it feels natural to focus the mentoring relationship on those matters, it should really be as much about the executive as it is about the business that he or she leads.

Business leaders who are considering enlisting the guidance of a mentor can make the areas in which they want to improve the criteria for finding the right fit. Not every CEO will have the complete set of skills that a company needs. For example, an executive who has successfully established a company in the U.S. may want to consider expanding the company into international markets as the next step. The executive might seek out the assistance of a veteran CEO who has led such an expansion.

Another important point to consider is that mentorship does not only need to be business-related. A lot of variables factor into the performance of a CEO that include how the person balances work and leisure. For this reason, having a mentor could make all the difference in the long-term success of a business.

2. Offering someone to confide in

Trust is central to a successful CEO mentoring relationship. At the outset, establishing ground rules for confidentiality will foster an environment of open and more productive sharing. Executives often have to handle situations in which sharing details with others in the company may do more harm than good. In these cases, a mentor can provide a reliable sounding board for the CEO. This also helps in identifying and addressing weaknesses, which can serve as a catalyst for one’s growth as a leader.

3. Acquiring personalized feedback

At the various organizational levels below the executive level, mentorship programs are just that: programs. While they can produce valuable results, such as increasing productivity and reducing employee turnaround, they do not provide the same personalized dynamic available to CEOs working one-on-one with a mentor of their choice.

CEOs have the advantage of steering the course in the mentoring mentorship. They can decide which business-related items they want to address and which aspects of their leadership style they want to improve. In a Harvard Business Review study, more than 70 percent of the CEOs polled said that their participation in this type of mentoring relationship indirectly resulted in a boost in company performance.

4. Storytelling can help to spark new thinking

In the aforementioned Harvard Business Review study, CEOs shared that storytelling is the preferred method of receiving instruction from one’s mentor. The narrative approach allows more experienced executives to provide ideas and suggestions to their mentees without explicitly telling them what to do. Stories can shed new light on a particular situation, and CEOs can then determine how to apply the theme to their own work. In comparison with the alternatives, such as enrolling in a fellowship at a top-ranked business school, the one-on-one mentoring model for CEOs is uniquely appealing and worth considering.