Mentoring and leadership are crucial factors considered when one decides to join the navy. For instance the junior navy recruits will be taken through a mentorship program in order to know what is expected of them during their mission and develop them as a whole. Mentoring skills are also considered as part of leadership both are part and parcel of a sailor’s life. The generals and commanders ensure that every recruit undergoes this process fully and that they understand what is expected of them. This paper therefore seeks to discuss leadership and mentoring in today’s navy. The leadership and mentoring prepares one wholly for their program as sailors and make them aware of what is expected of them during their service in the navy. The mentoring program enables them to be able to understand basic health skills like using science - based technology and tools to regulate a person’s emotion and build resilience and energy as they await deployment or are about to undergo a surgery procedure. The mentoring process helps in building trust between the leaders and the juniors while undertaking training and in the long run the juniors will be committed to the process just as the leader (Bell & Goldsmith 20).
When the leaders in the navy mentor the juniors, they end up inspiring them and enabling them be focused in their goals as sailor. This also leads to developing other leaders in the process ones they have mastered what is expected of them in the service and lead to good relations in the long run between them and the senior colleagues and thus they will feel valued and appreciated.
The mentorship program also enables the leaders who mentor the new group of sailors identify their ability as individuals and will in the long run know where to deploy them. The leaders will take the sailors with the various talents for extensive training in order to gain the necessary skills needed for a particular division of the navy. This ensures that the skill pool is nurtured and always available whenever the need arises (Bell & Goldsmith 32).
Leadership and mentoring also ensures that the sailors are motivated and are equally up to the challenges they may face in future. The leader, having being mentored will have to be resilient in the event that the whole team is faced with specific challenges such as deployment of a team of sailors when war erupts. The leader will thus be able to know how to operate and maneuver his troops to handle the situation at hand accordingly (Bell & Goldsmith 45).
The navy as a whole is a team and the leader has to always be at the forefront in preaching the art of synergy and would have a heart to help one another when going through tough situations. For instance the leader will come up with a mission that is to be done in a group of about five and advises them to work as a team when undertaking their military tactics on board. A leader has great influence in the troop and every action mentor a new sailor in the troop. Good leadership practices within the navy will enable the junior sailors learn on how to communicate properly among themselves, improve their decision making ability and even increase one’s confidence in actions they undertake(Bell & Goldsmith 55).
The mentoring program helps one stay focused and gives him time to reflect on his problems and may seek help on how to solve or manage them so that they do not interfere with his mission. In such a situation when a leader uses himself as an example when discussing how he managed a stressed situation or challenging it would help the junior sailor greatly as he will have known what steps to take to let go of what bothers him and stick to the issue at hand (Bell & Goldsmith 60).
In as much as leadership and mentoring help within the navy, they however come with some shortcomings. To begin with, when the junior sailors are exposed to a bad leader, they are likely to emulate his actions because of the influence he has among them. For instance a bad leader may end up mentoring them on how shrewd a captain maybe and how he might infringe their rights and in the end he will have mentored them wrongly and this may result in a revolt and may spark war among the sailors who know little about the navy (Bell & Goldsmith 68).
Moreover, in the event that one undergoes the mentorship program and end up becoming a leader later in future then gets drunk with power, he or she may not be open to any suggestions or feedback from the juniors and may end up making decisions blindly and want things to be done in his or her way. This in the long run leads to lack of cooperation among the ranks in the navy and may as a result lead to collapse in command and possible defeat when at war (Bell & Goldsmith 75).
A mentored leader may tend to ignore any form of advice or suggestions from his colleagues on how to undertake a particular mission. This completely kills the virtue of teamwork and nobody will be willing to listen to him or her at a later date. This division may expose the navy in the long run because the enemies will capitalize on the weakness such as division and easily beat them at sea (Bell & Goldsmith 80).
A leader may also be so proud that he would always want to be recognized and would use his powers to dictate to the junior sailors who have already been exposed to the same mentoring process and know how the leadership process is undertaken at every single stage. This may thus lead to the event of the leader getting threats from the junior members who might end up overthrowing him and take control of the ship and run it as they wish (Bell & Goldsmith 85).
Furthermore, leader may be frustrated when he feels that a junior sailor is not following his instructions accordingly and he or she is not progressing quickly. The mentee may also get frustrated when he or she notices that the much attention he or she needs is not given and it would consequently force either of them to seek it elsewhere (Bell & Goldsmith 97).
Leadership and mentoring in the navy therefore go hand in hand and it would be wise for the leaders to ensure that the new junior sailors are taken through proper training in order to develop the needed leadership skills and also be able to mentor others in the near future. They should also ensure that the new leaders can be trusted.
Work cited
Chip R. Bell, Marshall Goldsmith. Managers as Mentors: Building Partnerships for Learning. Chicago: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2013.
(Bell & Goldsmith 2013)
