"When a Mentor Becomes a Thief"

I just came across a Science Magazine article (it's old - from 2002 - but I still think it's relevant and important) on mentorship ("When a Mentor Becomes a Thief").  The article talks about a PhD student named "Ann Green" ("the story is true, only the names have been changed") who worked for 7 years on her doctoral thesis at a highly prestigious university on the East Coast.  During her work, she had made a particularly important breakthrough, only to later find out that her thesis advisor had published the results as the first author.  Yikes!  As someone once told me, there are always three sides to a story - the two individuals' versions and the truth, so I don't know if this story would meet the criteria for theft of intellectual property.  Certainly, however, the story is a great example of academic misconduct (taking sole credit for someone else's work - in this case, Dr. Green wasn't even listed as a co-author on the paper).

Mentorship is important - however, there is a right way and a wrong way to be a mentor (see a few articles here, here, and here for some helpful characteristics on how to both succeed and fail as a mentor).  I have been blessed, throughout my career, with great mentors at each and every step of the way.  At times, these mentors have been pushed me and challenged me to be better.  They have served as cheerleaders, giving me the self-confidence and belief in myself that I could do better.  And, they have coached me on how to handle different situations, many of which they had been faced with before in their own careers.

Every leader needs a mentor - even CEO's of multi-national Fortune 500 corporations need mentors. To the same extent, all leaders are mentors.  Indeed, one of the most important responsibilities AND privileges of being a leader is to serve as a mentor for others.  At a minimum, a leader must be a mentor and coach for his or her direct reports.  Again, throughout my career, I have been blessed with some great bosses that have been role models and mentors.  However, I have also had a few not so great bosses as well. 

I once had a boss that was quick to share the credit, but even quicker to pass on the blame.  My particular experience with this manager was extremely frustrating.  Don't get me wrong, I am a firm believer in personal accountability.  However, a leader should never try to hold someone accountable for issues that are beyond their control.  Authority and empowerment must come first.  In my example, I was being held accountable (wrongly, in my opinion), for a series of failures on problems that I was neither empowered nor given the authority to solve.  In the end, this experience wrecked the relationship that I had with this boss.

So, to summarize, there are three key points on mentorship that I would like to leave you with:

1.  Be a good role model.  Lead by example.  All leaders need mentors, and leaders must, in turn, serve as good mentors too.

2.  Accountability without empowerment is a recipe for failure.  Deference to expertise requires leaders to trust their direct reports to accomplish the task at hand.

3.  Don't be a mentor thief!  Give proper credit where credit is due, but also recognize that passing on the blame to mentees and/or direct reports will ruin the mentor/mentee relationship and lead to failure in the end.