Latest / The Career Mentor Podcast with Fexingo: Finding Mentors, Sponsors, and Career Advisors / The Five Types of Mentors You Actually Need
Transcript
- Lucas: If you Google 'how to find a mentor,' you get about four billion articles all saying roughly the same thing: find someone senior who you respect, ask them for coffee, and hope they say yes. Luna: Right. And then you're supposed to just… have one mentor who guides your whole career. Lucas: Exactly. And that is terrible advice. I mean, it's not entirely wrong—having a senior person in your corner is valuable. But the idea that one person can fill every mentorship need is a fallacy. So today I want to talk about the five distinct types of mentors you actually need, based on a really good piece of research from the Harvard Business Review. Luna: Five types. That's a lot more than one. Let's hear them. Lucas: So the first type is what researchers call the Navigator. This is the person who knows the politics, the unwritten rules, the informal power structure of your organization or industry. They can tell you, 'Look, if you want that promotion, don't go through HR—you need to get visibility with the head of product first.' Luna: That's the classic 'how things really work around here' mentor. I've had one of those. She saved me from making a really stupid move early in my career. Lucas: Exactly. The Navigator is invaluable, especially when you're new to a company or industry. The second type is the Craftsman. This is someone who helps you sharpen your technical or functional skills. They're not necessarily senior—they could be a peer who's just really good at the craft. For a software engineer, that might be the person who writes the cleanest code. For a writer, it's the editor who makes everything better. Luna: So the Craftsman is about excellence in the actual work. Not career strategy, but skill-building. Lucas: Right. And this is the mentor most people actually seek, because it feels concrete. 'Teach me how to do X better.' But if you only have a Craftsman, you might become a really skilled individual contributor who never gets promoted, because you don't have a Navigator. Luna: Okay, what's number three? Lucas: Number three is the Skeptic. And this is the one people are most uncomfortable with. The Skeptic is someone who will challenge your assumptions, poke holes in your plans, and tell you when your idea is half-baked. They're not being mean—they're stress-testing your thinking. If you only surround yourself with cheerleaders, you'll make avoidable mistakes. Luna: So the Skeptic is basically a pre-mortem in human form. I love that. But it takes a lot of trust to have someone who constantly questions you. Lucas: It does. And you don't want them in your ear all day—that would be exhausting. But having one Skeptic in your mentor portfolio forces you to be more rigorous. Number four is the Connector. This is the person who seems to know everyone. They open doors, make introductions, put you in rooms you wouldn't otherwise have access to. Luna: The Connector is essentially a sponsor-lite. They're not necessarily fighting for your promotion, but they're expanding your network. Lucas: Exactly. And number five is the Champion. This is the person who actively advocates for you when you're not in the room. They're the ones who say your name when a big project comes up or when a promotion committee is debating candidates. This is the closest to what we'd call a sponsor. The Champion has power and is willing to use it on your behalf. Luna: So out of those five—Navigator, Craftsman, Skeptic, Connector, Champion—how do you actually go about finding them? I feel like most people just stumble into one or two by accident. Lucas: And that's exactly the problem. Most people's mentor networks are accidental. They happen to hit it off with a senior person, and they cling to that one relationship forever. But the research is clear: people who intentionally build a diverse mentor portfolio advance faster and report higher career satisfaction. So how do you do it? Luna: Let me guess—you don't walk up to someone and say 'will you be my Navigator mentor'? Lucas: Please do not do that. You identify a need, then you identify a person who naturally fulfills that role, and you ask for something specific. You don't ask for mentorship—you ask for advice. A Navigator might respond to: 'I'm trying to understand how decisions get made in the marketing department. Could I buy you coffee and ask you about that?' A Craftsman: 'I saw the dashboard you built for the Q3 review. Would you be open to reviewing mine and giving feedback?' Luna: So you're basically reverse-engineering the relationship. You ask for something small and concrete, and if it works, it can grow into a mentorship. Lucas: Exactly. And you don't need all five at once. At different career stages, different types matter more. Early in your career, the Craftsman and Navigator are probably most important. Mid-career, the Skeptic and Connector become critical. Later, the Champion can make or break your shot at senior leadership. Luna: I want to talk about a real example. There's a case study from Microsoft—a mid-career engineer named Priya who mapped her mentor network using these five categories and realized she had three Craftsmen, one Navigator, and zero Champions. She was getting great at her job, but she wasn't getting promoted. Lucas: That's a fantastic example. Priya was a senior engineer at Microsoft. Technically brilliant. She had a reputation for being the go-to person for debugging complex systems. But she'd been passed over for principal engineer twice. When she mapped her network, she saw the gap immediately: she had plenty of people who could help her code better, but nobody who was advocating for her in the promotion committee. Luna: So what did she do? Lucas: She identified a senior director in a different division who had a reputation for sponsoring underrepresented engineers. She didn't ask for mentorship directly. She asked for a thirty-minute chat to get that director's perspective on what it takes to make principal at Microsoft. In that conversation, she demonstrated her technical depth, and the director was impressed. Over the next few months, Priya kept in touch, shared a couple of her projects, and eventually that director became her Champion. Luna: And did she get promoted? Lucas: Within a year. The Champion made the difference. Now, correlation isn't causation—she also continued doing great work. But she had been doing great work for years without the promotion. The Champion closed the gap. Luna: That's exactly why the five-types framework is so powerful. It's not about collecting mentors like Pokémon. It's about being strategic about what you're missing. Lucas: Right. And it forces you to be honest with yourself. Most of us gravitate toward mentors who make us feel good—the Craftsman who praises our work, the Connector who's fun to network with. But we avoid the Skeptic because it's uncomfortable. Or we don't pursue a Champion because it feels like we're asking for too much. Luna: What about the risk of overloading your mentors? If you have five different people giving you advice, can't that get conflicting or overwhelming? Lucas: It can, which is why you need to be clear about which role each person plays. You don't go to your Craftsman for political strategy, and you don't ask your Navigator to critique your code. Each mentor gives advice within their lane. You're the one who synthesizes it. That's part of the skill—learning to weigh different perspectives and decide what fits your context. Luna: So the mentor portfolio isn't a committee that votes. It's more like a board of advisors where each member has a specific domain. Lucas: Exactly. And you can have the same person play multiple roles. That Microsoft engineer's Champion started as a Navigator—she gave her context on promotion politics. Over time, she became a Champion. But you need to be intentional about it. Don't assume one person can do everything. Luna: I want to bring this back to something practical for our listeners. If someone is listening and thinking, 'I don't have any mentors,' where should they start? Lucas: Start with the Craftsman. It's the least intimidating ask. Identify someone whose work you genuinely admire—could be a colleague, could be someone in a different department, could even be someone outside your company. Reach out with a specific compliment and a specific request. 'I loved the way you structured the quarterly report. Could I show you my draft and get five minutes of feedback?' That's low risk, high value. Luna: And once you have that relationship, you can gradually ask broader questions that might edge into Navigator territory. Lucas: Right. And if you're more senior, don't underestimate the value of the Skeptic. At a certain level, everyone tells you you're great. You need someone who will tell you when your strategy has a blind spot. That's hard to find, but it's worth actively cultivating. Luna: If today's episode was useful to you and you want to keep it ad-free, buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo helps. Lucas: Yeah, listener support is what allows us to keep these conversations going without sponsors. So if it's valuable to you, that's the link. Luna: Okay, back to mentor portfolios. One thing I've noticed is that people often undervalue peer mentors. A Craftsman doesn't have to be senior—they just have to be skilled. Lucas: Absolutely. Some of the most effective mentorship relationships are horizontal, not vertical. A peer mentor can give you feedback that feels less loaded with power dynamics. And they're often more available. The key is to make it reciprocal. You can be someone's Craftsman in one area while they're your Navigator in another. That mutuality strengthens the relationship. Luna: So you're saying I should think of my mentor network as a give and take, not a one-way donation of wisdom. Lucas: Exactly. The best mentor relationships are mutually beneficial. Even if you're junior, you bring something—fresh perspective, technical skills the senior person might not have, knowledge of a different team or industry. If you approach it as a two-way street, it's more sustainable and more genuine. Luna: Let's talk about how to maintain these relationships over time. I think a lot of people find a mentor, have a couple of great conversations, and then the connection fades. Lucas: That's the classic failure mode. The fix is to have a cadence that works for both of you. It doesn't have to be monthly. It could be quarterly. But you need to be consistent. Send a brief update: 'I took your advice on X and here's what happened.' Or share an article that reminded you of their area of expertise. Keep the relationship warm without always asking for something. Luna: So the mentor portfolio isn't just about acquisition—it's about maintenance. You have to invest in it regularly. Lucas: Exactly. And one practical tip: use a simple spreadsheet or note to track your mentor relationships. List the name, the type, when you last connected, and what you discussed. That way you can see gaps. If you realize you haven't talked to your Skeptic in six months, it's a prompt to reach out. And if you notice you have three Craftsmen and zero Connectors, you know where to focus. Luna: I love that. It's like a CRM for your career. Lucas: Exactly. And it takes ten minutes a month. The return on that ten minutes is enormous. Luna: So to wrap up, the five types are Navigator, Craftsman, Skeptic, Connector, Champion. You don't need all five overnight, but you should know which ones you're missing. Lucas: And the first step is to audit your current network. Who do you already have? Who's missing? Then identify one person who could fill that gap and reach out with a specific, low-stakes request. That's it. One conversation can start the process. Luna: And if you're already in a position to be a mentor, think about which type you naturally are. Maybe you're a great Craftsman but you could also be a Connector for someone. Lucas: That's a great point. The framework works both ways. Knowing what kind of mentor you are helps you be more intentional about the relationships you offer. And it makes you a better mentee too, because you understand what each mentor brings. Luna: Alright, next episode I want to talk about what happens when you outgrow a mentor. Because that's another tricky transition. Lucas: That's a perfect follow-up. Let's do it.