Candid Conversation with Ginger Hardage, former SVP of Culture & Communications at Southwest Airlines, and Lauren Andrews, Manager at Gagen MacDonald
Gain tips and tricks on all things mentorship
Designed for emerging leaders, the Plank Center’s Candid Conversations series features industry leaders and their mentees. With a focus on mentoring relationships, series host and Plank Center Emerging Leader Committee member, Sonny Franks Miller, poses challenging career questions to Ginger Hardage and her newfound mentee, Lauren Andrews. Topics include:
What does a mentor look for in a mentee?
What can a mentee bring to a relationship?
How can a mentor help counter imposter syndrome?
What are the key ingredients of a successful mentoring relationship?
From their experiences, you’ll be able to apply their learning and insight to your own success. The following is some background on Ginger and Lauren’s relationship and selected quotes from their Candid Conversation found on the Plank Center YouTube channel.
Candid Conversation soundbites
Featuring
How did your mentoring relationship start?
As a Plank Center Milestones in Mentoring honoree, Ginger was invited to showcase her insights on a mentoring relationship. Most of Ginger’s mentees were more senior in their careers than the Candid Conversation emerging leader audience.
To be more relevant, Ginger reached out to her friend, Maril MacDonald, another Milestones in Mentoring honoree, for mentee candidates. Maril introduced Ginger to Lauren, one of her staff.
What does Lauren bring to the relationship?
“I’m learning a lot from Lauren. Especially because Lauren asks a lot of good questions. But I think that most of the time Lauren already has the answers. I think I just help reinforce what Lauren is already thinking.
With previous mentee relationships I’ve had, the challenge is how to keep it alive. With Lauren, we won’t fall into that trap because at the end of each call, we set the date for the next meeting and she follows through.”
What does Ginger look for in a mentee?
“The first thing I look for is someone with immediate candor, someone who is willing to be vulnerable. Next, character is very important. I always ask potential mentees to give me an example of what they did when they made a tough decision. I wanted to know who they are and how they think so I could feel like I was connecting with them.”
How does your relationship work?
For Lauren, “Ginger has created a safe space to talk about managing my career. I believe it’s important for younger people to be able to bring their whole selves to work. And that’s the attitude that Ginger is bringing to mentoring.”
Ginger sees her role as “helping Lauren manage her long-term career. I won’t get involved in advising Lauren on her day-to-day job.”
Lauren, how has working with Ginger inspired your self-confidence especially when you were feeling challenged?
“As a former type-A student, I found it difficult to find my footing as a young professional. The transition from school to professional life was challenging. There really isn’t a professional equivalent to getting an A in class.
As I reflect on my five-year career, my most pivotal moments and projects that became passions are a result of encouragement from mentors and leaders.
I’m a first-time people manager. I’ve had incredible managers and sometimes I’ve had imposter syndrome. Ginger says imposter syndrome doesn’t go away. I want to learn about Ginger’s experiences. She asks great questions that make me think and boost my confidence that my instincts are right and I’m on the right track. I leave every call feeling better than when I started.”
Ginger, what’s the one thing you know now, that you wish you would have known when you were at Lauren’s stage in her career?
“I wish I would have known earlier on in my career how it’s important to grab every leadership opportunity you can to develop your leadership skills.
Early in my career, I viewed work like I viewed college. I took a test alone and I worked as an island. Later, I learned I could lean on others to get my work done.
I wish I would have focused sooner on leadership training. You can take courses, but you can’t just study it, you have to do it.”
Lauren, as a new leader of people, when you hear some of Ginger’s challenges how does that make you feel?
“I’m unlearning my tendency to want to make things perfect. It’s also important to give good direction and trust your team will do it.
I’m growing in my confidence to manage people and I know what good leaders look like. I’ve been managing someone for about six months and I want her to be better than I am. Maril, the founder of Gagen MacDonald, is super-optimistic about managing people and says being a people manager is the best part of her job.”
More Candid Conversations on the Plank Center YouTube channel
Ginger and Lauren have many more insights to share on the value of mentoring relationships, their take on AI, and how young professionals can manage the ever-increasing work pace in their Candid Conversation. You can watch the full interview here.
Check out more Candid Conversations with other industry leaders and their mentees as the Plank Center releases more segments in the coming weeks. Please let us know if there are industry leaders you’d like to hear from.
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