Lessons from a Mentor

In last week's post, I mentioned watching others as a strategy for developing your own leadership skills.  This week I'll talk about some lessons I learned from an important mentor of mine, Sandra Featherman.  Sandra was my first boss when I became an administrator.  At that time, she was the Vice Chancellor for Academic Administrator at UMD.  After that she went on to become President of New England University in Maine.  She continues to view mentoring others as a very important aspect of her leadership role.

Sandra was very good at avoiding micro-management.  If I had a concern or problem I was trying to solve, she would listen, and if asked, she would give advice.  But she rarely tried to solve the problem for me.  She provided a safe space for me to explore ideas without taking over or shutting down my creative spirit.  She encouraged me to be a problem solver.  She also encouraged me to look at a problem from multiple aspects before making a decision.

Perhaps Sandra's best advice to me was to use principle-based decision making.  That is, before making a decision, ask yourself if there is a principle you can apply.  If not, is this situation likely enough to recur that you should take the time to develop a principle before making the decision?  By developing a set of principles and using them in making decisions, you will make more consistent decisions over time.  This helps those who are working with you to anticipate what you would do and, best of all, to begin to develop their own principle-based decision making.  In my experience, people appreciate consistency, and lack of consistency tends to make them crazy.  Moreover, using principles makes it easier for me to make decisions over time, cutting down on having to reinvent the wheel at every new decision point.

Sandra Featherman is retired now, but she remains very busy with many activities that continue to take advantage of her great leadership skills.  I am lucky to have had her as one of my important mentors.