Leadership
Just A Bit Outside
A division supervisor's carefully staged coffee break taught me that good mentors create real responsibility while remaining close enough to keep a developmental mistake from becoming a catastrophe.
During one of my under instruction watches as Radioman of the Watch aboard USS KEY WEST, my division Chief (supervisor) announced that he was going to get coffee just before we were going to periscope depth.
Then he disappeared.
Until that moment, I had performed the work with an experienced leader nearby. Suddenly, I felt the full weight of being responsible for the watch station. It did not take long for me to encounter something that made me question whether I was ready.
I rushed out of the radio room looking for help.
My supervisor was standing just outside the door.
He had never truly left me alone. He had moved far enough away for me to experience responsibility, but he remained close enough to prevent my inexperience from becoming a serious failure.
At the time, I mostly felt relief. It took years of leading others before I fully understood what he had done.
He did not build my confidence by telling me that I was ready. He created a controlled opportunity for me to discover what I knew, recognize what I did not know, and ask for help when I reached my limit.
That is an important distinction.
Leaders can remain so close that the people around them never develop independent judgment. They can also step away too quickly and mistake abandonment for empowerment. Good mentorship exists between those extremes.
A good leader gives people real responsibility. The consequences must matter enough for the experience to produce growth. At the same time, the leader remains attentive, available, and prepared to intervene before a developmental mistake becomes a catastrophe.
Over the years, I have tried to carry that lesson into my own leadership:
Stand beside people until they do not realize you have stepped away.
The goal of mentorship is not to make someone dependent upon the mentor. It is to help that person develop the judgment and confidence to perform without one.
Sometimes the most important thing a leader can do is walk toward the coffee pot—and then quietly wait just outside the door.
Repository reference: Nathan Knowledge Repository, Story 1 — “The Division Supervisor’s Coffee.” This article is a public reflection derived from the tenant-held source Story.