Why Mentorship Is the Most Underrated Leadership Skill

I started my professional journey as an engineer before moving into product strategy and innovation leadership roles for several global technology organizations. Over the years, I have served as a mentor for a variety of programs including Products That Count’s strategic product management, Women in Product mentorship initiatives, and Alchemist accelerator programs.

In 2024 and 2025 I led Walmart’s Women in Product mentorship program. I was responsible for designing and implementing the programs, including managing participant registration, matching mentors with mentees, and establishing clear standards for how they would interact.

Yet for much of my own early career, I never really had a mentor.

As an individual contributor engineer, I was focused on solving problems, delivering results, and figuring things out independently. I was hesitant to ask for help for fear of being judged for what I didn’t know.

Part of that was also temperament. I am naturally introverted.

That mindset rewarded me well. It made me self-reliant, resilient, and deeply driven. But it also had limits. Looking back, I now realize that believing I had to navigate everything alone was not always a strength. I sometimes wonder how many opportunities I missed simply because I never asked for help.

As I moved into product management and later strategy roles, I began collaborating with larger teams, departments, and organizations. The work itself became more cross-functional and people-centered. Over time, I started recognizing the value of mentorship, sponsorship, and collaborative growth in ways I had not appreciated earlier in my career.

I received valuable advice from different people at important moments throughout my career. Some helped me navigate conflict with more clarity. Others helped me communicate my contributions more effectively. And others gave me perspective on how to approach uncertainty, deal with organizational complexity, and avoid burnout.

But those moments were not the same as mentorship. They were valuable but infrequent interactions, not sustained relationships. No one consistently guided me through difficult decisions, advocated for me with decision-makers and senior leadership, or actively invested in my long-term growth.

My understanding of mentorship changed not as a mentee but as a mentor.

A leadership multiplier

Mentorship is often seen as an act of goodwill: admirable but optional. In reality, effective mentorship can be a competitive advantage for everyone involved.

For mentees, it can accelerate career growth, strengthen decision-making, and create access to opportunities that hard work alone does not always unlock.

Mentorship strengthens an individual’s leadership skills, empathy, and the ability to develop future talent.

For organizations, mentorship builds stronger leadership pipelines, more resilient teams, and healthier cultures of growth and trust.

By getting involved, I began to understand that meaningful mentorship is not simply occasional advice or career guidance. At its best, it is an active investment in another person’s growth. It includes advocacy, sponsorship, honest feedback, visibility, and sometimes helping people access opportunities they may not have reached on their own.

That is why mentorship should not be treated as kindness or incidental support. It is one of the most practical, hands-on, and personal forms of leadership.

Advocacy changes careers

Advice can help someone improve, but advocacy and sponsorship can change the direction of a career.

In many organizations, career growth depends not only on talent but also on access to honest feedback, influential networks, and sponsors willing to speak about someone’s potential when opportunities are discussed. Access also includes introductions to people who can recognize the value and impact of a person’s work.

Sometimes the difference between advice and true sponsorship is illustrated more clearly through stories rather than through leadership frameworks. In The Devil Wears Prada and its sequel Nigel’s relationship with Andy evolves far beyond workplace advice. In the 2006 movie, he helps her grow professionally, pushes her to envision a more expansive future, and guides her through an unfamiliar industry.

In the sequel—set two decades later—his investment in her success continues even though their careers diverge. When Andy (played by Anne Hathaway) is laid off during a difficult job market and struggles to find meaningful opportunities, Nigel (Stanley Tucci) quietly recommends her for a role at his firm. She is arguably overqualified for the position, but Nigel recognizes that it is the right opportunity at the right time. His recommendation helps her transition from a career in the news back into working in fashion. She can regain stability and ultimately rebuild career momentum. Over time, the opportunity becomes a turning point, reshaping her professional trajectory.

What makes it meaningful is not just the recommendation itself. It is that Nigel continued paying attention to her career growth over the years, believed in her potential, and supported her when she needed it.

That is what meaningful mentorship and sponsorship often look like in practice: not surface-level guidance but genuine investment in someone’s long-term growth and success.

When mentors provide that kind of support intentionally, mentorship becomes more than guidance. It becomes a competitive advantage—not only for the mentee but also for the mentor and the organization.

Why inclusive mentorship matters

Mentorship matters because talent alone does not shape a career. Access is important. In many workplaces, advancement depends not only on capability but on guidance, sponsorship, visibility, and informal knowledge about upcoming job opportunities.

Not everyone has equal access to such advantages. Research from McKinsey and Lean In suggests that women often receive less mentorship, sponsorship, and career support than men do, even in organizations that publicly emphasize inclusion and leadership development.

When mentorship is left entirely to informal networks, opportunity often becomes uneven. And when it’s left to chance, opportunity also is uneven.

That’s why inclusive mentorship matters. It creates a more intentional way to support people who might otherwise be overlooked.

What great mentors require

“A mentor is someone who allows you to see the hope inside yourself,” Oprah Winfrey once said.

Great mentorship is not about having all the answers. It’s about showing up with intention. It means listening closely, being candid, and helping someone grow with more confidence and clarity.

The best mentors respect their mentees’ time. They come prepared and listen for what is needed rather than rushing to give advice. They are open about their successes and failures because honesty builds trust faster than polished stories do. Great mentors tailor their guidance to the individual and encourage growth while also creating accountability.

Above all, good mentors create a psychologically safe space. They make it easier for mentees to ask difficult questions, test or pitch ideas, and talk openly about issues without fear of being judged. Growth usually starts at that point.

Organizations have a role to play as well. If mentorship matters, the program should be visible and supported.

That can mean including it in stated expectations of leaders, creating ways to connect mentors and mentees, providing mentorship training, and recognizing outcomes that go beyond performance metrics.

It also can mean broadening the understanding of mentorship. Peer mentorship, cross-functional mentorship, and even cross-industry mentorship can play important roles.

The leadership gap many organizations ignore

Promoting mentorship should not involve forcing artificial relationships or turning an employee’s growth into a line on someone’s to-do list. Organizations ought to promote the idea that leaders should invest in others, helping to build stronger teams, more capable leaders, and more organizational resiliency.

At a minimum, organizations should ask mentors whether they helped their mentee grow in their career and whether the mentee became more confident, capable, or prepared as a result of the relationship. Did they help junior employees navigate the organization more effectively? What opportunities did they create or find to give the mentees more visibility? Did they help mentees develop communication, leadership, or decision-making skills?

Those questions might be hard to quantify, but they get close to the substance of leadership.

Legacy is built through people

People might remember the strategies a leader shaped, the products the leader created, or the financial targets that were hit. Such accomplishments matter, of course. But another part of leadership lasts longer. It lives in the coworkers whose careers were advanced because someone took the time to invest in them.