In my profession, there is strong recognition for the importance and impact of good coaching and mentorship...so much so that it's mandatory to receive feedback at least once a year, and the organizational culture strongly encourages (read, expects) junior officers to attend the mentorship or career broadening discussion that comes with every visit of a senior officer.
These expectations, however, do not diminish the coaching and mentoring process, for most anyone that plans to be a career military officer understands that most learning takes place in absorbing knowledge from your superiors, as well as your senior enlisted subordinates. Often times, these senior leaders had to demonstrate their capability to rise in the ranks, and it is they who signs off on performance reports and may very well have say in your next assignment. Thus, it behooves the up and coming officer to learn the best of every senior officer they come across, and to integrate it into their developing leadership style.
I do want to add that for me personally, an interest in coaching and mentorship isn't only due to professional tradition, but also because I've come to highly value the feedback I have received over the years. I'm admittedly my own harshest critic at times, and during the coaching/feedback sessions I've received I usually received a more even-handed evaluation of how I'm doing and can draw some motivation. More importantly though, I get a third party perspective on what needs work, which often gives some confirmation of potential areas of improvement I had been thinking about but can just as often bring new areas to my attention. I definitely owe a lot of my leadership development over the last couple of years to having received good coaching.
Most general mentorship sessions are also valuable for me in either reaffirming that even the most experienced leaders had to go through some of the same growing pains I've had to deal with, and sometimes I even gain some additional perspective on focus areas or the kind of leader I'd like to develop into. As cliche as it may sound, there's still something to be said for being able to candidly sit down with someone who has been doing what I'm doing for anywhere from ten to twenty years, and hearing about how they handled challenges that came their way.
Bottom line, having that coaching and mentorship experience is probably the single most valuable aspects of my profession, and even in my daily life has had some of the highest impact on and off the job.
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