What You Want from Your Leader, Mentor, or Coach

If you’ve ever had a great leader, mentor, or coach, you know just how valuable that experience can be in shaping your personal and professional development. Great leaders, mentors, and coaches can make a tremendous difference in your results, and they can make the difference in your life.

If you want to grow both personally and professionally, these four factors are what you are looking for in a leader, mentor, or coach. If you’re in management or leadership, read these ideas as a “how to” list for making a difference in the lives and results of the people you lead.

Someone Who Believes In You

If you have had a leader, mentor, or coach that made a difference in your life, you’ll remember more than anything else that they believed in you. They believed in you even when you didn’t believe in you. They saw something in you that you were unaware of. They knew you were capable of far more than you believed you were capable of.

You want a leader, mentor, or coach that believes in you. You want someone who recognizes what you are really capable of achieving and pushes you to be the very best version of yourself.

Sees Your Blind Spots

A great leader, mentor, or coach can see the negative things about yourself that you can’t see. You can’t see your own blind spots. They can see the obstacles that prevent you from achieving what you are truly capable of. Mostly these obstacles are your beliefs and the actions that flow from them. But a great leader, mentor, or coach can work on those beliefs and actions. They can help you change your mind.

You want a leader, mentor, or coach that can see what you can’t see. You want someone with the experience to recognize which of your beliefs need to change, and you want someone you trust enough to provide you with some alternative—and healthier—beliefs.

Will Tell It to You Straight

When it comes to our own success, much of the time we are our own biggest stumbling blocks. A great leader, mentor, or coach will tell it to you straight. When you are undoing yourself, they’ll tell you directly to stop. They’ll tell you how what you are doing is hurting you. They won’t let you travel too far down the wrong path, gaining the experience of failing, before they shove you back onto the right path.

You want a leader, mentor, or coach that tells it to you straight. Experience is a great teacher. But that doesn’t mean that the only way to learn in through your own mistakes. You can just as easily learn from other people’s mistakes. When you are making a major mistake, you want someone will tell it to you straight.

Is Willing to Invest Time In You

There isn’t any way to have a great leader, mentor, or coach make an impact on your life without their having made an investment in you. This is the investment of time, and time is what it really takes to know and understand you, your goals, your obstacles, and your needs.

The leaders, mentors, and coaches that touch your life give you the gift of their time. This is what you need from your leader, mentor, and coach. To deserve the gift of their time, of their beliefs, and of their counsel, you have to be open to receive it.