Mentorship — More Important Than Ever!

The D.O.M. magazine group is in New Orleans this week for the NBAA Maintenance Conference (NBAA MC). I am grateful to have had plenty of discussions with readers of all ages here at the conference. 

One reader I talked to shared the importance mentorship. He said that he makes a point to mentor young mechanics entering the workforce. He says that he owes his success to a mentor who took him under his wing and helped mentor him when he was just starting out. Recognizing the importance of that mentorship, he feels obgligated to pay it back by mentoring young mechanics himself.

On the downside, he shared that he no longer has a mentor he lean on in order to continue to grow in his career. He says he recently ran across his old mentor at an industry event. He shared his disappointment on no longer having a mentor to turn to. "I'm still here," his former mentor said. "My mentorship didn't end when you became a manager! You still have my phone number. Give me a call anytime you want!"

Just because we reach a certain level of success in the aircraft maintenance industry doesn't mean we must do everything on our own. What's keeping us from reaching out to our early mentors and continuing to learn from them? What's keeping us from reaching out to other individuals in the industry to build relationships with possible new mentors?

We need to remember the importance of mentorship. One way we can do that is to start mentoring young mechanics ourselves. We must also remember that we are not alone. We need to take advantage of our own mentors — no matter our age or the years of experience we have. There's always someone out there more experienced than we are that we can lean on to continue our lifelong learning journey!

Thanks for reading,

Joe