Devotional Blog:

Topic: “Mentor Me”, 11/16/2011, Proverbs 9:9-12

I don’t know how many times since starting my postdoc that I’ve desired minions. Cohorts in my pursuit of viral evolution and ecology. Kindred spirits clad in lab coats and laced with the smell of phenol chloroform. Ok…really I just need people to help me with lab work that I like doing but I have less and less time to do as analysis and writing alone consumes me sometimes. But in return I’d like to mentor.

I mentored a very motivated undergraduate student while in grad school and she turned out quite apt and successful so I figure I did something right…and I tried at all costs to minimize her interactions with my boss who also happened to be her academic mentor. He had the uncanny ability to make many women (including myself at times) who worked in his lab want to staple things to his head and leave in a hail of frustrated cuss words and gunfire.

I mentioned in my last post that many topics in this book seem to be on repeat and I realize I posted a blog earlier on ‘leadership’ but I think this is different…the idea of leadership and mentorship. Ideally they should go hand in hand and I aspire to that but many times they don’t. There are many leaders that are terrible mentors and mentors that if you put them in charge of something wouldn’t know left from right practically speaking–rather they are gurus of ‘sense’. They are often the ones that you want to quote a lot because they inspire you, even if practically speaking they may not get a whole lot done.

Leaders you follow, mentors you quote. And if you have someone that is both, then  you get the great leaders of our time. But they all had to start somewhere.