How mentorship supports high performance by entrepreneurs, leaders, and organisations.
Entrepreneurs are often defined by confidence, sometimes bordering on stubbornness. To launch a business, you have to believe you can do something better than anyone else. Better than what's already out there. Better than the status quo. This mindset fuels innovation and progress - but it can also breed a dangerous kind of isolation.
The paradox is that the very traits that make entrepreneurs successful - independence, self-belief, and vision - can also make them resistant to what they may need most: a mentor. Nevertheless, time and time again, those who've achieved lasting success in business point back to the people who helped them get there.
I've experienced this personally. Our now chairman gave me my first job and has always been someone who challenged me. He had no interest in flattering my ego. He helped me to see the road ahead more clearly, not by telling me what I wanted to hear, but by saying what I needed to hear.
The benefits of mentorship are far from just anecdotal. The Harvard Business Review reported that 84 % of CEOs said mentors helped them to avoid costly mistakes, and 76 % reported an improvement in their ability to fulfil stakeholder expectations. Meanwhile, research by The UPS Store, a franchising operation, has found that 70 % of small businesses that received mentoring survived more than five years, double the rate of non-mentored businesses. These numbers speak volumes: behind every bold business vision is someone quietly asking the right questions.
Of course, mentorship isn't "one size fits all", and the value that it brings depends on context. For founders, mentorship can be a lifeline. Early-stage entrepreneurs juggle everything, wearing multiple hats and having to manage operational concerns like billing, people management, and technical issues alongside growing their business.
Mentorship provides a much-needed additional perspective unhampered by the minutiae of day-to-day business. Think of Steve Jobs guiding Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook, or Richard Branson learning from Sir Freddie Laker at Virgin Atlantic. Those mentors didn't just encourage, they challenged, warned, and provided the long view that founders often don't have the luxury of seeing clearly.
In large organisations, mentorship can unlock what some refer to as the intrapreneurial mindset: people who drive change, spot opportunity, and act with agility from within. By acting as a mentor within Aspectus, I've had the privilege of identifying and nurturing many of our future leaders.
There's no single blueprint for mentoring. It can be formal or informal, structured or spontaneous. But whether it happens through a company-wide programme or over an impromptu coffee, the most important conditions for success are mindset and culture.
At Aspectus, we have the mantra that "feedback is fertilizer - it helps you grow". It's a phrase we use often, because it captures something vital: growth comes not just from praise, but from honest, constructive challenge. That's only possible in a culture where feedback is welcomed rather than feared, which is where another of our guiding principles comes in: robust kindness.
Robust kindness doesn't mean sugar-coating things or avoiding difficult conversations. It means delivering the truth with empathy, and hearing the truth with humility. It means knowing that challenge is an act of care. That's what makes great mentoring work: one person brave enough to give feedback, and the other open enough to absorb it.
At its best, mentoring delivers far more than advice; it unlocks potential, strengthens leadership, and builds lasting value for individuals and organisations alike.
I've seen the benefits first-hand. Some of our top performers have worked with external coaches not because they were underperforming, but because we saw their potential to be exceptional. And the gains have been clear. We've seen people overcome confidence barriers, improve how they manage clients, and become more strategic in the way they think about their careers. We've also seen hard commercial results, from new business wins to better client retention.
David Bowie once said: "If you feel safe in the area you're working in, you're not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you're capable of being in." That's where interesting things happen - when your toes just touch the sand, and your head stays just above water.
Imagine a corporate culture built on that edge. Where feedback is fertilizer, kindness is robust, and growth is everyone's business. Driven forward by the power of mentoring.
