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Rising Star
Some of us do try, but the job looks very different now. Seniors aren’t just directing, we’re executing too. Between constant pitches, client pressure, and lean teams, teaching ends up squeezed into whatever time is left.
And honestly, mentoring only works if juniors are open to it. I’ve given people ownership, pulled them into pitches, walked them through feedback. If they ignore the notes or go their own way, we still have to fix it when the deadline comes. At that point, the business wins over the lesson.
So yeah, mentorship matters. But the reality of the workload matters too.
I have at least half who don't want to be coached. Younger millennials/Gen Z. They think they know everything. Good luck with that come promo cycle time kids. The flip side of this post is the lack of passion to learn is getting worse too - which could be a cycle with CD's not teaching, generational malaise, not sure which came first. But I see it all around. They set boundaries at every turn, refuse to do in person events, dont want to work trips when I was younger I would do backflips for, refuse to form relationships with account/strategy/clients, don't ask questions or even pretend to want to learn - yet then want to be rewarded in every 1on1. It's exhausting. I would go the extra mile to coach someone who wants to learn. I have very few of those.
Came here to say this, the coin has two sides.
I’m in meetings from 9-5 almost every day. It’s insane. I try my best but the time for mentorship is extremely limited.
Sadly, most CDs are just white-knuckling it to keep their jobs, do the work and prove their worth with tangible production vs. intangible "mentoring"...I always loved mentoring & helping prepare the next generation(s) of creatives for great, hopefully long-lasting careers as both doers and leaders...but right now, my 2¢, there's just SO much abject fear of being expendable, most senior would-be leaders/teachers/mentors are just in fight or flight mode.
And yes as ACD1 and CD3 said—it's a two way street. Sadly, too many junior creatives just want participation trophies and bristle at "being told what to do" when I'm not TELLING, I'm (trying to) suggest and guide based on 30+ years of doing this at a pretty high level. After a while it's like, okay, you do you, champ—good luck.
Remote work, and people’s reluctance to be in person, has had a huge impact. Teaching and mentoring was far easier and more impactful when it was in person.
The most I learned was while I was remote instead of someone gesturing pointlessly at a screen in person.
It's the watering down of titles and ageism. A lot of CDs & ACDs are now just CWs and ADs internally promoted to keep them from leaving, and for less pay. Your 26 year old ACD doesn't know anything yet. Your 40-50 year old mentor has been laid off. If you can still find one, look to the people with wrinkles for mentorship.
Chief
It happened when we stopped rewarding creatives for being great and started expecting them to be compliant.
My CDs really pushed me to work hard, but they also stood up for the work and threw me in the deep end.
Now, I’ve been told not to push clients, to hover just in case, and zero young creatives want to work more because there’s zero upside.
And if I teach them to really go to the mat for the work or really push themselves, I’m not even sure that’s the right lesson. My ECDs don’t care if someone is great as long as they’re agreeable. If anything I’d teach them to agree and just care less.
I see most of the ACDs I work with stretched so incredibly thin balancing the world of ensuring the work of others is on par and reporting that up the chain, while also managing their own 360 campaigns and shoots. Most of them truly don’t have the mental space to mentor well on top of that. If you learn through observation and osmosis, great, otherwise you have to find mentorship outside of the agency structure. It’s also worth noting that mentorship is a skill that some people possess naturally, but it isn’t taught nearly enough when people are promoted to management level. Again I think that’s a bandwidth issue. The industry stretches people to a point where you’re already giving 100%, so doing more feels impossible.
I’m a senior AD with almost 8 years experience, and I mentor juniors and students through a free mentorship platform when I have the bandwidth in my spare time. I really enjoy doing it, and I hope it helps me when I become an ACD.
I try my best to mentor but like others have mentioned, it’s a crap shoot on whether Junior creatives are even open to it. I’ve had some juniors who listened and improved by leaps and bounds. Very rewarding to see. More and more, I get BS excuses, missed deadlines, and copy that clearly was run through Chat GPT at the last minute. Makes you resent even trying to teach them
Yeah, that’s not billable and we need 100% utilization at every level. Figure it out yourself /s
A lot of out of touch boomers here crying about young people standing up for themselves when it comes to workload and preference for remote work. It doesn't take much more than a glance at the economy to see why that is. As to OP's question, ive been lucky to have CDs who have adapted like good designers do and continue to mentor through zoom calls and good notes. I think any distance you may notice in some CDs is probably not personal, they are likely dealing with pressure from execs and general burn out with the way the industry has been going.
Chief
I fully see why you would set boundaries in an economy like ours. It might be the right call.
That said, it’s still your career. You can look at the current state of things as a reason to detach or a reason to lean in harder.
But what you’re seeing isn’t boomers bitter that you’re not trying harder, but an acknowledgment that you’ll get out what you put in.
My mentors didn’t teach me magic tricks that would get the work done faster, they taught me to work more, think harder, be more critical. And a lot of my classmates had the same mentality you did- why lean in- when I graduated, mid-recession, in 2008.
That’s kind of the conundrum we’re in as leaders. If we push you to push yourselves, it’ll be met with resentment and an “ok boomer” mentality. So what’s the point? If you’re going to resent me for trying to make you great, I’d rather log off early too. There’s zero upside in me staying late to help someone who doesn’t want to learn and may not appreciate what I’m telling them for years, if ever.
I fully get why you’d want to detach. But if you’re bitter that a mentor isn’t leaning in to teach you, know it was always sink or swim. It’s not like your bosses benefitted from some magic mentorship you lack. Our bosses were just harder on us.
Still here!
When I had a team, I did my best to be a good coach. I read “The Coaching Habit” and “Leaders Eat Last” and a few others. I created instructional content even though agency management was not happy that i was putting stuff out there that wasn’t approved by them. Essentially it all comes down to time. These days, creatives in leadership roles are just as time starved as everyone else, and finding the bandwidth to bring juniors along is very difficult. The problem is once that cycle is broken, we create an entire generation of leaders who have no idea how to be a good coach. It’s another chink in the armor of the crumbling Agency model.