Who is your mentor?

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Brent Johnson
  • 71st Medical Operations Squadron commander
VANCE AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. --  Who is your mentor?

You undoubtedly have one, or several, or had a couple along the way.

Mentorship is vital in one's development. My philosophy is that one must seek out a mentor based on personality, knowledge and willingness to mentor.

You must also be ready to mentor those that come after you. I recently welcomed a new member, on his first assignment, to my squadron and we talked about mentorship. I urged him to find a mentor who can advise him on career progression, how to get his Community College of the Air Force degree and meet his other goals.

I also told him that as he gets older and moves up through the ranks, others will turn to him for advice or input. He must be ready to be that mentor for others, too.

The Air Force certainly believes mentoring is important. Air Force Instruction 36-3401, "Air Force Mentoring," defines a mentor as "a trusted counselor or guide" and says that "mentoring is an essential ingredient in developing well-rounded, professional and competent future leaders."

It also somewhat delegates the role of mentor to commanders and supervisors. "The immediate supervisor or rater is designated as the primary mentor for each of his or her subordinates."

True, there are certain aspects of professional development that I as commander or supervisor must ensure that the individual member receives. I must help that member with honest performance feedback, job knowledge and a basic near-term career plan for training, education and development.

But is that all there is to being a mentor? Is everyone equally qualified or interested in mentoring others? Can the Air Force really issue me a mentor?

Mentors must have personalities that make them approachable. Do they welcome the opportunity to mentor others and answer questions? Although there have been few, I have known people in my Air Force career that had personalities completely unsuited to mentoring others. They were either too busy or didn't care enough about those under them to meet those requirements.

Does everyone truly have the knowledge to be a mentor? This question completely applies to me. I am a podiatrist and am in the Biomedical Sciences Corps, along with 17 other career fields.

Podiatrists around the Air Force usually work closely with Medical Corps officers - doctors of osteopathic medicine and doctors of medicine -- and Nurse Corps officers whose career paths and requirements differ from ours.

Here at Vance, I am the biomedical sciences corps executive, so I counsel all the BSC officers in the 71st Medical Group. I am also the rater for a Dental Corps officer, a Nurse Corps officer, two BSC officers and my squadron superintendent, who is a dental tech.

Does anyone reading this think that I know all the details about every single career field, so I can effectively mentor everyone? The answer is no!

Does everyone have the willingness to be a mentor? This is closely related to the personality question. As sad as it sounds, not everyone is interested enough in others that they should be a mentor. I would hope that anyone who is a supervisor cares enough about their people to be a mentor for them, but it's not realistic to think that this will automatically happen.

What I tell the people under me is that I can give them wide-ranging general guidance, but they must actively seek out mentors who will take an interest in them and give them specific career-field guidance on how to progress and plan their development.

Notice that I did not say "career." People should seek out mentors for reasons not solely related to the Air Force. Looking back thru my papers recently I was reminded of mentors and role models I had early in my career.

Among them were Cols. Charles Hardin, Ted Parsons and Joe Agostinelli; Rhonda Cornum and Kory Cornum who both became brigadier generals; and Command Sgt. Maj. Craig Layton. They were mentors early on, whether they realized it or not.

I think a real mentor is someone that the mentee gravitates towards and emulates. I have a couple mentors now that are prior commanders with whom I talk regularly. Hopefully I'm as good a commander as they were.

So, who's your mentor? Start with your rater, but don't stop there. Go out and seek those people that are successful role models, learn from them and stay in touch with them. They'll help you get where you want to go.