Leadership Roundtable Advanced
Session 4: Mentorship

  • Speakers: Carl Vaagenes, Terry Lijewski
Carl Vaagnes highlights
  • Core conviction: love is the foundation of leadership; if things aren’t well outside of work, it’s extremely difficult for people to be at their best at work.
  • Summer intern program: one intern per year over three months; weekly scheduled time to discuss purpose, values, and life decisions using “Leading Jesus Way” as the guide.
  • New leader onboarding: used the servant leadership model (Build Relationships, Build Energy, Build Performance) to set expectations with a newly promoted physician enterprise leader; directed focus to relationships and energy first around the “One Alomere” vision
Terry Lijewski highlights
  • Book recommendation: “Sage Stage: The Most Important Leadership Season and How to Make It Count” by Chris Crane and Lloyd Reeb
  • Onboarding mentoring program: 12–16 weeks with every new hire; covers Leading Jesus Way, Leadership Portrait, The Ideal Team Player, The Go-Giver, Five Dysfunctions of a Team; includes CEO blog and strategic planning exercises.
  • Fruits of the Spirit exercise with interns: one fruit per week. Weekly assignment: observe where that fruit is demonstrated in your circle of influence; text Terry the scenario and your reaction; also text how you personally demonstrated it that week.
  • One-on-one meetings with each of his three adult children (lunch, dinner, golf, car shopping); focus is on listening, not advising. Asks three questions: (1) Where is God speaking to you? (2) What are you reading or listening to that is advancing your spiritual walk with Jesus? (3) How can I pray for you specifically?
  • Consider volunteering in mentor programs such as Minnesota Adult and Teen Challenge’s Mentor Program.

Key Themes from Small Group breakouts

  • JJ Slag: “Coaching the leader versus mentoring the person.” Move beyond coaching into mentoring with direct reports. Be intentional!
  • Radical intentionality: Travis described bedtime questions with younger children
  • Rob described leading with love and informal partnering for performance with an underperforming employee
  • Mentoring a spouse: Adam Schrank’s daily intentional walks with his wife prompted Clay Hanson to reframe marriage itself as a mutual mentoring relationship
  • Bobbi Jo O’Brien: her home is the gathering place for her kids’ friends; being a present, available sounding board for those young people is mentorship, even when informal
  • Mike Hartwell: uses intentional recognition cards, going directly to employees caught doing the right thing and opening a deeper conversation from there
  • Jon Cullen: starts department meetings with a growth topic and navigating life before moving into business; sees opportunity to bring Terry’s three questions into the workplace
  • Phil Kassel (Prinsco): value-to-behavior focus on “To be clear is to be kind”; centers mentoring on identity, helping people move from fear and scarcity to abundance by knowing who they are and whose they are
  • Landon Fries: proposed that the LRT Advanced group get more involved in each other’s organizations. Example: family farm generational transition with Todd Malecha. Example of leader Troy taking a Friday off to spend the day with his daughter through a painful anniversary; Landon credited his mentoring for enabling Troy to lead his family that way
  • Doug Houska: recognized a personal need to seek a mentor in his own life.
  • Paul-Barnabas-Timothy model (surfaced in Ryan Skoog’s group, credited to JJ Slag’s coaching vs. mentoring distinction): everyone should have a Paul mentoring them, a Barnabas as a peer, and a Timothy they are investing in; coaching leaders is valuable but mentoring the person goes deeper
  • Building a culture of mentoring: Mark Anderson described systems at Vivie where mentoring is organizational, not just a leader’s individual activity; over 100 employees recently went through Leading Jesus Way
  • Matt Olson: shared a real-life example of being available to someone in crisis and, by taking the time to listen, likely saving that person’s life
  • Small groups at church (Jon Cullen, Doug Houska): iron-sharpening-iron peer groups are another avenue for being mentored; Doug encouraged everyone to seek those out
  • Don’t assume people don’t want to be mentored: they often don’t know what they don’t know; keep challenging them even if initial resistance exists