A mentor should leave fingerprints on someone’s thinking, not chains around it.
LEADERSHIP
WHAT THIS MEANS
A good influence shapes how someone thinks and then gets out of the way. It shows up years later as a question they ask themselves, a standard they hold, a way of approaching a problem, and it is entirely theirs by then. The other kind produces someone who cannot move without checking, which looks like loyalty and functions as restriction.
Ask whether the people you have influenced are freer or more constrained. Encourage them where they depart from you. Fingerprints are the aim, not a hold.
A QUESTION TO SIT WITH
Whose influence still shapes how you think, for better or worse?
MORE IN LEADERSHIP & INFLUENCE
- Wanting the ball with three seconds left means you’d rather miss than wonder. That’s the mindset.
- The first toast you give at a family dinner will be shaky and short. Give it anyway. The second one gets better.
- If you never saw someone like you in the stories, write yourself in. That’s how the shelf changes.
Free, with nothing to buy inside it.