I wanted to comment on the your idea of seeing yourself not as the hero, but the hero’s mentor. Maybe that should be Mentor with a capital M, but then we’ve moved from Star Wars to the Trojan War.

There’s a joking definition that says a manager is someone who makes other people do the work. One reason the joke works is because it’s true: if you’re the manager, one of your main tasks is to make it possible for people to do their work, not to do that work yourself.

Along those lines, I once heard a presenter talking to a group of new managers. He stressed that part of the manager’s job is to help other people to succeed.

To illustrate this, he showed a few clips from the movie ”The Karate Kid.” I’m sure you recall the hard work that Mr. Miyagi put the kid through–washing cars, doing all kinds of chores. In frustration one day, the kid started yelling, and so Mr Miyagi acts as if he’s going to strike the kid–whose hand, trained by all the repetitive motion, flies up to block the blow.

(This is that scene.)

It’s easy for the future manager to see the point of this. But that scene was not the presenter’s main point. For that, he showed the end of the movie, when the kid wins the big karate competition. As the crowd cheered, the presenter paused the film and said:

”If at this moment you are identifying with the kid, and not with Mr. Miyagi, maybe you are not ready to be a manager.”

Now that is a Mentor.