Episode 7: Creating Leaders Through Mentorship
In this week’s episode, Cheryl McPhilimy joins us to talk about the importance of mentorship, how mentors change over time, and the importance of creating leaders through effective mentorship.
“The most important quality you have is the ability to learn. ”
About Our Guest
Cheryl McPhilimy is an instructor at Loyala University, teaching classes across public relations and communications. Her firm, McPhilimy Associates, a Chicago-based public relations and executive communication consulting firm. The firm specializes in working with executives, leaders and boards on issues of messaging, strategy, visibility and public perception, particularly in high-stakes, high-profile situations. Her client work with executives, teams and content experts includes Fortune 500 companies, global manufacturing companies, international consulting firms, financial and other professional services firms, large non-profit organizations, entrepreneurs and associations.
Earlier in her career, Cheryl worked in print and broadcast journalism and at a large advertising agency. She and her firm have earned numerous awards from the communications industry, such as the Public Relations Society of America Skyline Awards and PCC’s Trumpet Awards.
At Loyola, Cheryl started the Chicago’s first and only student-run communications firm, Inigo Communications. Her work as a mentor for Inigo members has led to high-quality client deliverables for national brands like United Airlines and the American Heart Association. Read more about Inigo here.
Inspiration and Recommended Reads
A 2019 study from Forbes found that 63% of women have never had a formal mentor. The article includes suggestions on how to find a mentor, including our favorite, the “I care about what you care about” approach.
The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences has an extremely comprehensive mentor toolkit. We’ll specifically call out their “micro-mentoring meeting agenda” which can help guide a new mentor-mentee relationship. Some of their content skews towards academia, but can be repurposed for more general professional use as well.
We talked a lot about professional mentors in this podcast, but I’d also encourage listeners to think about the personal mentors they lean on - or want to seek out. Personal mentors can be a relative, a colleague, a therapist, or other people who know your personal goals and want to help you achieve them. In this episode Caitlin called out her high school coach and a mantra he used that she still uses today: “I can, I will.”
Keep an eye on the blog in the upcoming weeks; we’ll be publishing a worksheet to create your own personal board of directors!
Where to Find Us
We’re on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and recently on LinkedIn. Interested in a guest post on our blog, or want to be a featured guest on the podcast? Email us at weareoverworked@gmail.com.
