Our Blog
This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.
OKWe may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.
Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.
These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.
Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.
We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.
We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.
These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us customize our website and application for you in order to enhance your experience.
If you do not want that we track your visit to our site you can disable tracking in your browser here:
We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.
Google Webfont Settings:
Google Map Settings:
Google reCaptcha Settings:
Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:
The following cookies are also needed - You can choose if you want to allow them:
What is a mentor?
/in Sharpening Your Personal Leadership Skills/by Tom DoescherThe term “mentor” has become popular in recent years, although it has been a concept forever. There are countless examples of business, political, religious, and sports leaders who credit their success to their “mentor” or, like I (Tom) like to say, their “coach.” As I’ve reflected on my own life, I have realized that I’ve been blessed with more than my share of coaches.
What are the benefits of a mentor? To us, a mentor is a role model who is someone further along in life than you. The mentor may provide values, skills, techniques, and possibly a network. Most of all, a great mentor tells you things you may not want to hear. Early in my career, one of my mentors suggested I improve my grammar. Instead of using the phrase “constructive criticism,” or “weaknesses,” another mentor emphasized personal and/or professional development. Maybe a rhetorical question you could ask yourself is: Am I a better person because of a mentor?
I’ve been fortunate to have many great mentors over the years, including my dad, my Uncle Pete (Wesley C. Carlos, a successful high school football coach), Coach Bob (my high school wrestling coach), Frank Moran (founder and managing partner of Plante Moran), and Ken Kunkel (my Plante Moran team partner who is still mentoring me today). In addition, I’ve identified close to 20 others who I would say have had a meaningful impact on my life.
As we meet with executives, we’re shocked by how many would say they’ve never had a mentor. This got us thinking and asking ourselves, Why do we have so many and others have none? Is it a matter of pure luck? Last September we posted a newsletter addressing that subject, entitled, What’s luck got to do with it?.
Is it possible we have potential mentors all around us, and that maybe we’re the ones who need to take the first step?
As we reflected more, we thought about the great advice we’ve received from so many “peers” — even those who are “junior” to us. So maybe the real question is: Are you an island? Are you the Marlboro man? (For our younger readers, the Marlboro man was the image of a self-sufficient man who could do it himself; a true loner.)
Doescher Advisors Leaders Health Check-up, Part 5
/in Sharpening Your Personal Leadership Skills/by Tom DoescherIn our last post, we introduced the trait of Emotional Health from the Doescher Advisors Leaders Health Check-up, known by the acronym SMEP. In this post we’ll talk about the fourth trait, Physical Health.
If you’re reading this post, chances are you probably know plenty about your physical health. Things to ask when evaluating your physical health include:
Based on our experience, if you’re not doing well in your spiritual, mental, or emotional life, it will directly impact your physical health. Where you have cracks, they will be exposed.
Barbara’s mother is 96 years old and has excellent health and no pain. Her secret weapon? Moderation.
So, now you have it — the complete program known as the Doescher Advisors Leaders Health Check-up. Sad to say, we have known too many talented leaders who have ignored one of these aspects of their health and have fallen short of their full potential. That’s why we recommend periodically performing a gut check and asking yourself, How am I doing spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically (SMEP)?
Doescher Advisors Leaders Health Check-up, Part 4
/in Sharpening Your Personal Leadership Skills/by Tom DoescherIn our most recent post, we talked about the trait of Mental Health from the Doescher Advisors Leaders Health Check-up, which uses the acronym SMEP. In this post we’ll consider the third trait, Emotional Health.
Our epiphany with this trait came more than 25 years ago. There was — and is — a very well-known leader who we consider a long-distance mentor through his books and conferences.
At one of his presentations, he shared what he had learned in dealing with a bout of clinical depression. During his talk, he said he had a daily routine of assessing his physical and spiritual health (he knew, like many of us, that he was going at it pretty hard, and he didn’t want to get derailed). What he discovered during his illness was that he needed to monitor his emotional health as well as what was going on physically. These are our takeaways from his talk:
Like this leader, we would recommend assessing your emotional energy daily, and we suggest that you monitor your time with drainers. This may sound harsh, but you’re the leader of the whole team, not just this person(s).