Learning From The Greats: How Mentorship Contributes To Business Success

Dylan Taylor, Chairman & CEO, Voyager Space.

There is arguably no better way to lead in business than by example. A leader’s actions and demeanor can immediately mold those of their direct reports, especially in the face of internal challenges and macroeconomic turbulence.

For these reasons, proper mentorship is an imperative and often overlooked asset for building a functional, healthy workplace. This notion transcends leadership figures, with a company’s most experienced subordinate workers also holding a wealth of knowledge for new employees and those simply looking to further develop.

Observing To Learn

Everyone, from new hires to business owners, can benefit from observing a trusted mentor. A mentor embodies some degree of success in a worker’s intended profession or craft, making them a north star within the developmental process.

In this sense, the mentorship dynamic should consist of frequent educational discussion and open communication-with mentors encouraging questions and offering ample opportunities for hands-on learning. As this relationship evolves, the mentor should scale back their involvement, allowing their mentee to learn and grow on their own and ultimately find their stride.

Gaining Perspective

Beyond hard, practical skills, mentorship can also be an effective vehicle for establishing perspective among new and underdeveloped workers.

A good mentor should reflect the cultural, ethical and professional expectations conveyed by workplace leadership and business etiquette at large, painting a clear picture of their working environment and mitigating detrimental habits like toxic groupthink and the fear of being open about work-related challenges.

Perspective can position workers for success by reducing the likelihood of confusion and needless stress, keeping them focused, supported and comfortable.

Fostering Diversity

The modern workplace is more diverse than ever, with leaders making a clearer, more urgent effort to center their overarching goals on cultural and social accessibility and forward-thinking. This field is another in which strong mentorship can yield lasting positive results; this is an important part of conveying internal perspective.

By connecting members of underrepresented groups to experienced mentors, leaders can bridge crucial gaps and underscore the benefits of knowledge transfer. As such groups often encounter disparities in finding proper mentorship, fostering these relationships can not only make a workplace more well-rounded; it also contributes to a larger, long overdue shift toward getting all workers the developmental pathways they desire.

Creating Lasting Skills

Fundamentally-and perhaps most importantly-mentorship allows workers to establish, hone and implement skills conducive to a fruitful career. Ideally, these workers will one day earn the chance to become mentors themselves, passing on these skills and completing a vital cycle toward bettering their workplace.

Each instance of successful mentorship adds a new portion to this timelessly relevant mosaic, keeping the working world progressive, cohesive and prepared for a rapidly changing future.

Originally published at https://www.forbes.com.

Dylan Taylor is a global business leader, commercial astronaut, thought leader and philanthropist. Currently, Mr. Taylor serves as Chairman & CEO of Voyager Space, a multi-national space exploration company focused on building the next generation of space infrastructure for NASA, global space agencies, and commercial users. As an early-stage investor in more than 50 emerging space ventures, Dylan is widely considered the most active private space investor in the world.

Dylan is a leading advocate of space manufacturing and the utilization of in-space resources to further space exploration. In 2017, he became the first private citizen to manufacture an item in space when the gravity meter he co-designed and commissioned was 3D printed on the International Space Station.

Dylan maintains an extensive philanthropic impact on the space industry. In 2017, Dylan founded the nonprofit and social movement, Space for Humanity, which seeks to democratize space exploration and develop solutions to global issues through the scope of human awareness to help solve the world’s most intractable problems.

Building upon his passion and support for the space industry, Dylan serves as a strategic advisor for both the Archmission and the Human Spaceflight Program and is a co-founding patron of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, which promotes the growth of commercial space activity. Additionally, he is also a leading benefactor to the Brooke Owens Fellowship, Patti Grace Smith Fellowship and Mission: Astro Access.

Dylan is a full member of the World Economic Forum and a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute. In 2020, Dylan was recognized by the Commercial Spaceflight Federation with their top honor for business and finance, following in the footsteps of 2019’s inaugural winner, the late Paul Allen and subsequent winners Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.
Dylan earned an MBA in Finance and Strategy from the Booth School of Business at University of Chicago and holds a BS in Engineering from the honors college at the University of Arizona, where he graduated Tau Beta Pi and in 2018 was named Alumnus of the year. He is also a graduate of the Global Leadership and Public Policy for the 21st Century program at Harvard University.