The Mentor I Didn’t Know I Needed at 60 — And Why Every Leader Needs One

There’s a quiet myth in leadership circles that once you reach a certain level of accomplishment, the need for mentorship fades. By the time you’re leading major initiatives or running large organizations, people assume you’ve accumulated enough wisdom to rely solely on your own experience. You become the mentor—surely not the mentee.

Years ago, by most measures, I had already “arrived.” I had run a business school. I understood strategy, operations, culture-building, and fundraising. From the outside, I looked like someone who didn’t need guidance.

But here’s the truth most people don’t talk about: the higher you rise, the more dangerous it becomes to believe you have nothing left to learn.

Experience brings confidence, but it can also quietly narrow your field of vision. It can trap you in what has worked before, causing you to mistake familiarity for mastery. If you’re not careful, the very success that brought you here becomes the thing that limits what’s possible next.

That’s exactly when the right mentor can change everything. And when mentorship truly works, both people benefit.

How mentorship becomes a catalyst

During my time as dean at the University of Arizona, a colleague suggested I begin meeting regularly with Michael Crow, president of Arizona State University. Our meetings weren’t in boardrooms or over coffee—they were walking meetings. For an hour at a time, often in the sweltering Tempe heat, we would circle the campus as he talked me through ASU’s transformation.

We were, quite literally, walking through strategy.

As we moved from building to building, he explained the purpose behind each interdisciplinary research center: why it was designed the way it was, what problems it aimed to solve, and how it fit into a broader institutional vision. He narrated the strategy while we stood inside the results.

Those conversations opened my mind to an entirely different level of thinking. I was confident I knew how to run a college. Michael was teaching me how to think like a university president—how to scale a vision for an institution; how to learn from what it had been while building what it could become. He was showing me how to see around corners.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but he was preparing me for a role I hadn’t even considered—one I would step into years later.

And that wasn’t the first time mentorship quietly shifted my path.

Early in my career, my MBA advisor, Bernie, nudged me toward pursuing a PhD—a path I hadn’t known to consider. He saw potential long before I did. His guidance expanded my sense of what was possible at a moment when I couldn’t yet imagine the trajectory my career might take.

Whether at 25 or 55, the mentors we need often appear before we understand why we need them.

Why you still need mentorship later in life

Even — and especially — in later career stages, mentorship matters. Here’s why.

1. You gain access to a higher level of thinking

You can have decades of experience and still encounter someone who operates at a different altitude. Mentors like Michael recalibrate your mental model. They widen your aperture, helping you see systems, consequences, and opportunities from a new vantage point.

Later-career growth often comes from lateral mentorship—peers, innovators, and leaders in adjacent fields whose thinking expands your own.

2. Experience is valuable — but it can also become limiting

Success can quietly create rigidity. Patterns become grooves; grooves become ruts. A mentor challenges assumptions you’ve stopped questioning.

I learned this early in my faculty career when I realized I needed to understand fundraising to support the ideas that mattered most to me. I knew nothing about philanthropy. The people who taught me were major gift officers, deans, and donors—experts far outside my own discipline. They became informal mentors who accelerated my learning and opened doors I didn’t even know existed.

Mentorship often comes from those who help you see what you’ve been missing.

3. Leadership roles are becoming more complex, not less

Leading today is fundamentally different from leading decades ago. Technology, expectations, and cultural norms evolve rapidly. A strong mentor helps you remain responsive rather than reactive—adapting instead of clinging to what once worked.

4. Mentors prepare you for roles you can’t yet see

Just as Michael prepared me for a presidency I hadn’t envisioned, mentors often plant seeds long before you know you’ll need them. The right mentor expands your capabilities ahead of the moment that calls for them.

Mentorship from younger voices

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned is that the mentor you need at 60 may be decades younger than you.

Some of my most valuable insights now come from:

• Younger faculty introducing new scholarship and approaches to teaching
• Early-career staff whose unfiltered questions cut through outdated assumptions
• Students and recent graduates whose fluency with emerging technologies reflects where the world is headed
• Young team members who instinctively spot opportunities that seasoned leaders can overlook

Their perspectives are creative, direct, and unburdened by institutional inertia. They push me to stay curious and connected to what’s next.

Reverse mentorship isn’t a novelty—it’s a necessity. When you genuinely listen to younger voices, you gain a clearer window into the future.

Staying teachable at any age

At its core, mentorship is about replacing hierarchy with teachability.

Ask yourself:

• Who still challenges my thinking?
• Who tells me the truth, not what I want to hear?
• Whose perspective stretches my own?
• Who helps me see blind spots I’ve stopped noticing?

If you can’t name those people, you may be missing one of the greatest advantages seasoned leaders have: the ability to learn from anyone, at any age, at any stage.

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There’s a quiet myth in leadership circles that once you reach a certain level of accomplishment, the need for mentorship fades. By the time you’re leading major initiatives or running large organizations, people assume you’ve accumulated enough wisdom to rely solely on your own experience. You become the mentor—surely not the mentee.

Years ago, by most measures, I had already “arrived.” I had run a business school. I understood strategy, operations, culture-building, and fundraising. From the outside, I looked like someone who didn’t need guidance.