Jan­ice Lear­mond-Criqui

Be­hind many suc­cess­ful peo­ple is some­one who saw their po­ten­tial be­fore they could ful­ly recog­nise it them­selves. A teacher who of­fered en­cour­age­ment, a su­per­vi­sor who shared an op­por­tu­ni­ty, or a sea­soned pro­fes­sion­al who took time to lis­ten. These seem­ing­ly small ges­tures can al­ter the di­rec­tion of a per­son’s life. That is the ex­tra­or­di­nary pow­er of men­tor­ship.

Men­tor­ship is more than giv­ing ad­vice. It is a pur­pose­ful re­la­tion­ship built on trust, mu­tu­al re­spect and a com­mit­ment to growth. A good men­tor does not sim­ply pro­vide an­swers; they ask chal­leng­ing ques­tions, share lessons from ex­pe­ri­ence and help an­oth­er per­son dis­cov­er the con­fi­dence to make in­formed de­ci­sions. Equal­ly im­por­tant, they cre­ate a safe space in which un­cer­tain­ty is not mis­tak­en for weak­ness.

This mes­sage was brought in­to fo­cus on Sat­ur­day 24 Oc­to­ber 2026, when the Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (HRMATT) launched Co­hort 2 of its Youth Men­tor­ship Pro­gramme at the Cipri­ani Col­lege of Labour and Co-op­er­a­tive Stud­ies. The gath­er­ing unit­ed emerg­ing pro­fes­sion­als, ex­pe­ri­enced men­tors and hu­man re­source prac­ti­tion­ers in an at­mos­phere of learn­ing and con­nec­tion. Through pan­el dis­cus­sions and speed net­work­ing, par­tic­i­pants were en­cour­aged to build au­then­tic re­la­tion­ships that could ex­tend far be­yond the pro­gramme it­self.

The guest speak­er, Kereesa Car­ring­ton-Nunez, de­liv­ered the keynote ad­dress. An ac­com­plished leader in ed­u­ca­tion and busi­ness, she brought a valu­able per­spec­tive to the im­por­tance of con­tin­u­ous learn­ing, con­fi­dence and pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment. The launch re­in­forced a truth worth re­mem­ber­ing: men­tor­ship is not con­fined to an age, job ti­tle or par­tic­u­lar stage of one’s ca­reer. We re­main both teach­ers and learn­ers through­out our lives.

For young pro­fes­sion­als, men­tor­ship can bridge the of­ten in­tim­i­dat­ing dis­tance be­tween aca­d­e­m­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tions and work­place re­al­i­ties. Text­books may ex­plain man­age­ment the­o­ries, but they can­not al­ways pre­pare a grad­u­ate for dif­fi­cult con­ver­sa­tions, eth­i­cal dilem­mas, of­fice pol­i­tics or the dis­ap­point­ment of an un­suc­cess­ful in­ter­view. A trust­ed men­tor can help turn these ex­pe­ri­ences in­to lessons rather than last­ing set­backs. In a so­ci­ety where many tal­ent­ed young peo­ple lack ac­cess to es­tab­lished pro­fes­sion­al net­works, de­lib­er­ate men­tor­ing can widen op­por­tu­ni­ty and help en­sure that po­ten­tial is recog­nised be­yond so­cial con­nec­tions.

Or­gan­i­sa­tions al­so have much to gain. When ex­pe­ri­enced em­ploy­ees will­ing­ly share their knowl­edge, they strength­en suc­ces­sion plan­ning, pre­serve in­sti­tu­tion­al mem­o­ry and cul­ti­vate fu­ture lead­ers. In work­places where knowl­edge is guard­ed as per­son­al pow­er, tal­ent stag­nates. Where knowl­edge is shared, ca­pa­bil­i­ty mul­ti­plies. Hu­man re­source lead­ers should there­fore view men­tor­ship as a strate­gic in­vest­ment, sup­port­ed by clear ex­pec­ta­tions, thought­ful match­ing and op­por­tu­ni­ties to re­flect on progress.

How­ev­er, ef­fec­tive men­tor­ship re­quires ef­fort from both par­ties. Men­tors must lis­ten with­out judge­ment, re­spect con­fi­den­tial­i­ty and re­sist the temp­ta­tion to mould mentees in­to copies of them­selves. Mentees, in turn, must ar­rive pre­pared, re­main open to con­struc­tive feed­back and take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for act­ing on what they learn. A men­tor may open a door, but the mentee must be will­ing to walk through it.

We must al­so recog­nise that men­tor­ing is not a one-way trans­fer of wis­dom from old­er to younger peo­ple. Re­verse men­tor­ship al­lows sea­soned pro­fes­sion­als to learn fresh ap­proach­es to tech­nol­o­gy, com­mu­ni­ca­tion and chang­ing work­place ex­pec­ta­tions. Dif­fer­ent gen­er­a­tions bring dif­fer­ent strengths. When cu­rios­i­ty re­places hi­er­ar­chy, both grow.

As a lead­er­ship coach and train­er, I be­lieve one of the most mean­ing­ful mea­sures of suc­cess is not sim­ply what we ac­com­plish, but whom we help to ad­vance. Ti­tles even­tu­al­ly change, po­si­tions are va­cat­ed and ca­reers come to an end. The con­fi­dence we in­stil, the op­por­tu­ni­ties we cre­ate and the val­ues we mod­el can con­tin­ue shap­ing lives long af­ter­wards.

HRMATT de­serves recog­ni­tion for sus­tain­ing this im­por­tant ini­tia­tive. Its great­est im­pact will be mea­sured not on­ly in com­plet­ed ses­sions or cer­tifi­cates, but in the courage, com­pe­tence and char­ac­ter of those who move for­ward be­cause some­one be­lieved in them.

Men­tor­ship is, ul­ti­mate­ly, lead­er­ship in ac­tion. When we lift oth­ers as we climb, we do more than build ca­reers. We build a stronger Trinidad and To­ba­go.