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The key path
- Why You Still Need Teachers Later in Life
There is a quiet myth in leadership circles that once you reach a certain level of success, mentoring needs to end. By the time you’re leading large initiatives or running large organizations, people assume you’ve accumulated enough wisdom to rely entirely on your experience. You become a mentor – definitely not a mentee.
Years ago, by most measures, I had already “arrived.” I ran a business school. I understood strategy, operations, culture building, and fundraising. From the outside, I looked like someone who didn’t need guidance.
But here’s the truth that most people don’t talk about: the higher you rise, the more dangerous it is that you have nothing left to learn.
Experience brings confidence, but it can also quietly narrow your field of vision. It can keep you stuck in what has worked before, causing you to mistake familiarity for skill. If you’re not careful, the success that got you here becomes what’s next.
That’s when the right mentor can change everything. And when mentoring really works, both people benefit.
How Patronage Becomes a Catalyst
During my time as dean at the University of Arizona, a colleague suggested that I begin meeting regularly with Arizona State University President Michael Crowe. Our meetings weren’t more than boardrooms or coffee – they were running meetings. For an hour at a time, often in the sweltering heat, we walked around campus as he talked me through ASU’s transition.
We were, quite literally, running on strategy.
As we moved from building to building, he explained the purpose behind each interdisciplinary research center: why it was designed the way it was, what problems it was meant to solve, and how it fit into the broader institutional vision. As we stood inside the results, he explained the strategy.
These conversations opened my mind to a whole different level of thinking. I believed I knew how to run a college. Michael was teaching me how to think like a university president—how to scale a vision for an institution. How to learn from what it was to what it could become. He was showing me how to see around corners.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but he was preparing me for a role I hadn’t even considered—one I would step into years later.
And it wasn’t the first time teachers quietly moved my way.
Early in my career, my MBA advisor, Bernie, encouraged me to pursue a PhD—a path I didn’t know to consider. He saw the potential long before I did. His guidance expanded my sense of what was possible at a moment when I could not yet imagine the trajectory my career could take.
Whether at 25 or 55, we often need them before we understand why we need them.
Why You Still Need Teachers Later in Life
Even – and especially – in the later stages of a career, teachers matter. Here’s why.
1. You have access to higher level thinking
You can have decades of experience and still encounter someone who works at a different height. Mentors like Michael restore your mental model. They widen your aperture, helping you see systems, outcomes, and opportunities from a new vantage point.
Later career development often comes from background mentors—complex, innovative, and leaders in adjacent fields whose thinking expands your own.
2. Experience is valuable – but it can also be limiting
Success can quietly breed toughness. Samples become drains. The sound of the grooves becomes. A mentor challenges the assumptions you’ve stopped questioning.
I learned this early in my faculty career when I realized that I needed to understand fundraising to support the ideas that mattered most to me. I knew nothing about philanthropy. The people who taught me were major gift officers, deans, and donors far from my own discipline. They became informal mentors who accelerated my learning and opened doors I never knew existed.
Mentoring often comes from people who help you see what you’re missing.
3. Leadership roles are becoming more complex, not less
Leadership today is fundamentally different from what it was known decades ago. Technology, expectations and cultural norms evolve rapidly. A strong mentor helps you be responsive rather than reactive – supporting what works instead of clinging to it.
4. Mentors prepare you for roles you can’t see yet
Just as Michael prepared me for a presidency I never imagined, teachers often plant seeds before you know you’ll need them. The right mentor expands your abilities before the moment calls for them.
Guided by small voices
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned is that the mentor you need at 60 may be decades younger than you.
Some of my most valuable insights come from:
- Younger faculty are introducing new scholarship and approaches to teaching
- Early-career staff whose unsolicited questions cut through outdated assumptions
- Students and recent graduates whose fluency with emerging technologies reflect where the world is headed
- Young team members who easily spot opportunities that experienced leaders may overlook
Their approaches are creative, direct, and unfettered by institutional inertia. They push me to stay curious and connected to what’s next.
Reverse patronage is not a novelty. This is a necessity. When you truly hear small voices, you get a clear window into the future.
Being able to teach at any age
At its core, mentoring is about replacing hierarchy with education.
Ask yourself:
- Who still challenges my thinking?
- Who tells me the truth, not what I want to hear?
- Whose perspective enhances my own?
- Who helps me see the blind spots I’ve missed?
If you can’t name these people, you may be missing one of the biggest advantages of experienced leaders: the ability to learn from anyone, at any age, at any stage.
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The key path
- Why You Still Need Teachers Later in Life
There is a quiet myth in leadership circles that once you reach a certain level of success, mentoring needs to end. By the time you’re leading large initiatives or running large organizations, people assume you’ve accumulated enough wisdom to rely entirely on your experience. You become a mentor – definitely not a mentee.
Years ago, by most measures, I had already “arrived.” I ran a business school. I understood strategy, operations, culture building, and fundraising. From the outside, I looked like someone who didn’t need guidance.
