This post is part of the series: Jung for Leaders — The Inner Work of Moving People to Action
Also in this series: The 12 Jungian Archetypes | A Deep Dive into Jungian Archetypes | Jung’s 5 Pillars of a Happy Life
At 53, there is no professional achievement of significance in my life that wasn’t initially identified by a mentor.
Mentors have always seen my potential better than me.
Brian Leggett encouraged me for 4 full years to teach at IESE Business School. Verne Harnish spent a year encouraging me to look at the Vistage opportunity. My father pushed me to take my career seriously at 20 years old and that challenge led me to spending almost a decade at Accenture in London, Chicago and Sydney.
Jung called this mentor figure the “Wise Old Man”, one of the most important archetypes in the human psyche.
The Mentor as Jungian Archetype
The “Wise Old Man” or mentor figure is not necessarily old, nor male, nor a formal mentor with a business card that says “mentor.”
In myths across every culture, the hero never begins, nor succeeds alone. There is always a guide: Gandalf, Merlin, Yoda. Mentor is the name of the trusted friend that Odysseus asks to guide his son Telemachus during his absence. Athena, the goddess of wisdom and strategy, regularly took the physical form of Mentor to provide divine guidance.
“A coach is someone who tells you what you don’t want to hear, who has you see what you don’t want to see, so you can be who you have always known you could be.” Tom Landry, NFL Coach
What Makes a Mentor Different From an Advisor
An advisor answers your questions. A mentor questions your answers.
An advisor gives the person you are today information that is of value to the person you are today. A mentor sees the person you are capable of becoming. A mentor shares experience that challenges you to become a better version of you.
When the Student Is Ready…
There is an old teaching: when the student is ready, the teacher appears.
I think this is literally true: not in a mystical sense, but in a practical one. When you are genuinely open to learning, when you have the humility to admit what you do not know, when you are paying real attention, you begin to notice the wisdom that was always available but previously invisible to you.
The Wise Old Man is not always a person… it can show up as a book, a poem, a song, a movie or an artwork. Sometimes it is a failure that teaches you what success could not.
The question is not where to find wisdom. It is whether you are open to receiving it.
How do you become open to the presence of mentors in your life?
- be grateful
- be a giver
- be a life long learner
- be open minded and curious
The Shift: Becoming a Mentor
The second half of life we begin to get more fulfilment through our impact on others rather than our own personal achievements. You spend years seeking the “Wise Old Man”. At some point, you become one.
Jung calls this shift part of individuation — part of moving from the first half of life, focused on establishing yourself, to the second half, focused on playing a positive role in other’s lives.
“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” — Carl Jung
A question to sit with: Who have been the Mentors in your life?
This post is part of the series: Jung for Leaders — The Inner Work of Moving People to Action
Also in this series: The 12 Jungian Archetypes | A Deep Dive into Jungian Archetypes | Jung’s 5 Pillars of a Happy Life
Conor’s Jung for Leaders Series of Blog Posts
Carl Jung spent his life exploring what it means to be human. Most leadership development focuses on skills, strategy, and behaviour. Jung explores something more fundamental: the person behind the leader. The single most-read post on this blog is about Jungian archetypes — which tells me that the readers here are not just looking for tactics, they are looking for self-understanding. This series is an attempt to go deeper into that territory.
- The Shadow: The Part of You That Sabotages Your Leadership — projection, blind spots, why your strongest reactions point inward, the gift hidden in the Shadow
- The Persona: Are You Leading as Yourself, or as a Mask? — inflation of the Persona, the cost of living inside the role, the journey back to self
- Individuation: The Journey From Success to Significance — why midlife restlessness is a call not a crisis, what blocks the journey, why it is not selfishness
- The Anima and Animus: The Hidden Energies Every Leader Needs — one-sided leadership, integrating strength and empathy, what your professional conditioning suppressed
- The Hero’s Journey: Every Leader Must Answer a Call — departure, initiation, return; the call you’re refusing; why the ordeal is the point
- The Wise Old Man: Finding and Becoming a Mentor — the archetype in myths, what mentors do that advisors don’t, the shift from receiving to giving
- The Trickster Archetype: Why Every Great Team Needs a Disruptor — Loki, Coyote, the Fool; why organisations suppress this energy; how to channel it
- Synchronicity: Paying Attention to What Life Is Telling You — meaningful coincidence, intuition as intelligence, the discipline of attention
- The Collective Unconscious: “Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast” — culture as organisational unconscious, how it gets formed, making the invisible visible
- Jung’s Psychological Types: The Original Framework Before Myers-Briggs — introversion/extraversion, the four functions, the inferior function as your blind spot
- Active Imagination: A Conversation With the Part of You That Knows More — the practice step by step, why it works, how to use it for decisions
- Your Personal Myth: Living the Story Worth Living — the closing post; the unlived life; rewriting the myth; the test of a worthy story