To the Mentor: Being a Good Reference

"You can't say that!" he protested. "I asked you for a reference!" he exclaimed angrily. "That won't help me!" he growled.

I replied: "What seems to be the problem? You asked me for a reference. I have written a reference. I'm offering you an opportunity to read it and discuss it before I send it."

"This letter does nothing but describe a bunch of stuff you seem to think are my faults and defects!" he pushed.

"Oh…I see. You wanted a ‘good’ reference," I said.

"Well, for a good reference, of course, you would have had to given me more to work with...You would've had to have been...well...good," I replied.

"But, this will lose me the job! This won't help me!" he protested further.

I held up my hand to discourage him from going any further: "You asked me for a reference, and I can only refer to my experience with you and of you. I invited you to meet with me today because I care for you. I have cared for you throughout our employment relationship. I sought to appeal to you when I was your boss, to meet performance standards, to keep your promises, to grow with the expectations of the job. You will recall the many times we had to meet to discuss poor performance. I have the documents here to support my statements in the reference letter. My invitation for you to come today is sort of a last appeal for you to cooperate with the character lessons I believe life has been dealing you through supervisors like me, through gaps in your performance, and through broken relationships…I’m not making up these patterns," I finished.

He grimaced, stood up, and walked out the door. It slammed a bit.

I sighed. For in that brash act, he seemed completely unaware that he was justifying my very reason for asking him to come. His attitudes and behavior could not be commended. To lie to him about him or for him served no purpose. His potential was not found in a letter that covered the fact of his character, but a letter that shed light upon it.

Yet, I knew he would be back. People always come back to the ones who tell them the truth. It would be seven years before I would hear from him again (but I will get to that later).

My friend, a former employee, wanted a "good reference." Instead, I gave him a faithful reference.

It’s hard to be faithful sometimes. As mentors and supervisors, we are entrusted with the ups and downs in the lives of emerging leaders, staff, protégés, and friends. Often, because of our position, or title, or status, we are called upon to sponsor others with our words, with our endorsements, and with our references. It is an honor to be asked. The emerging leader is saying to the sponsor: you know me well enough to vouch for me, to tell others what it will be like if I join their team. The emerging leaders expects the mentor has paid attention to them, not as a nameless serial number in a buzzing faceless crowd, but to the them in a particular, personal, and singular way. They are asking: “Can you leverage your name, reputation, and position so that I can gain entrance to what may become the next chapter of my life?”

In my position as a professor of emerging and executive leaders, I probably write 3-5 references a month. Each requester thinks their request is the only one I might have before me. But usually, there are several and I take the invitation very seriously, generating an original reflection that takes the form of a thoughtful letter, often with the help of asking them to submit the first draft. Usually, the reference-letter supplying business is easy, positive, and meant to hasten the leader along her or his way, to bigger, better, and brighter things.

But every once in a while, the unfinished nature of a person's character, skill, attitude, or aptitude is front and center. On those days, mentors must decide what business they are truly in: are they going to be fearful (and not tell the truth of what is there and what will be there for all to see) or are they going to be faithful to the emerging leader (as well as to the receiving organization or company, and of course to their own reputations)? And as difficult as it may be, I have decided I am looking for every opportunity to participate in the development of the leader, even if being faithful to him or her, for a moment, requires that I slow the conversation, bring up uncomfortable observations, and re-pledge to journey with them so they may experience relief and growth.

Last year, I had a knock on my door. It was the guy. Yes, the same guy who had stormed out almost seven years earlier. He told me what happened after he left.

He told me he cursed me for my arrogance and uncooperativeness: "It was just a formality and all you had to do was just say something nice." He told me he went to another professor for the required reference. That professor wrote him a glowing commendation. He was hired in the new job. He felt he had gotten the last laugh on me. But then troubles began. He found himself encumbered with many of the same work patterns of under-performance, broken promises, and repercussions from his cynical attitude...things which I had commented on in the letter (which, by the way, I never intended to send, rather, I needed to tell him what would be in such a letter if I was asked to be honest). He told me he could not get my words out of his mind, even when he was resenting them and the one who dared to give them. Over time, he told me he surrendered to the trueness of the words. He told me he was there that day to tell me: "I am ready to change my way of working, my way of relating to myself self-deceptively, my way of carrying resentments when things do not go my way. I was the arrogant one, not you," he said.

We began to work together in a mentor/emerging leader sort of way. We charted some learning exercises, which would allow him to build on his strengths, strengths I could point out to him with surprising concrete examples. We met regularly to talk about challenges he was having with supervisors and how he might become a valued and increasingly reliable contributor to the team. We worked together for almost a year, meeting monthly with a few texts and reading tasks in between.

A few months ago, he came to see me. He asked if I would write a reference letter for him.

I said: "Sure. Do you know what it will say?"

He replied: "Yes. And I do not need to see it this time...."

He was right. He didn't. He got the new job. But he got more than a new job.

#mentor #reference #faithful