The academics who climb fastest are not always the ones who lift others.
This is one of the harder trade-offs in higher education.
Career advancement takes time. So does mentorship.
Writing grants. Publishing papers. Building a profile. Saying yes to the right opportunities. All of this competes with the slower, less visible work of developing other people.
I have worked across six universities in three countries. I have seen senior academics so focused on their own trajectory that early career researchers were left to figure things out alone. I have also seen professors who invested deeply in others and watched their own careers slow as a result.
The system does not reward mentorship the way it rewards output.
Promotion panels ask about publications, grants, impact. They rarely ask: who did you develop? Whose career exists because of your guidance?
Mentorship is leadership. But it is the kind that does not show up on a CV.
The academics I admire most found a way to do both. They advanced while making space for others to grow. But they did it despite the system, not because of it.
What would academia look like if mentorship counted as much as metrics?
Source: Professor Dorina Buda
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