Triads: a Mentorship and Team-Building Mechanism
Definition
In the book Tribal Leadership, triads are discussed extensively as a team-building mechanism of stage 4 leadership. To paraphrase slightly:
The essence of a triad [is that] a person is responsible for the quality, anchored in shared values, of the other two people's relationship.
In the following discussion, a meeting format is discussed in which two people are peers and the third is called "Triad Leader"; that 3rd person is the person "responsible for the quality" in the Logan et al. formulation.
In a Mentorship Triad, rather than the traditional one-on-one (dyadic) mentor-protege relationship, mentorship is organised around three-person groups.
The dyadic mentorship relationship, while intuitive, carries several risks:
- The protege becomes dependent on a single mentor's perspective and judgment.
- The mentor may fall into teaching and coaching patterns rather than genuine mentorship.
- There is no third party to witness the dynamic and hold both men accountable.
- The relationship can calcify — both men settling into comfortable patterns.
The Triad addresses all of these risks. The two proteges are not passive recipients of an expert's wisdom — they are co-mentors to each other, developing their own mentoring capacities in the process.
The use of Opening Questions supports this, by requiring innovation in answers. For those cases in which neither co-mentor can think of anything to answer, the Triad Leader can bring role-relevant experience — after a respectful pause to sit in the question.
Triadic Mentorship as a Leadership Path
(Here we use a role "team leader" (TL) as an example of a smill domain in which mentorship is to take place.)
For individual TLs in a triad, there is a natural progression from
novice co-mentor, to journeyman and expert stages. The TL, upon
completion of his TL responsibilities with his team, can then remain
in the triad if he transitions to being a Triad Leader, with another
man (such as a newer Team Leader from another team) joining the triad.
The old Triad Leader, after perhaps one or two weeks of mentorship on
the TrL role, could then begin another triad.
A Mentorship Triad consists of three men:
The Triad Leader (TrL) is a man with extensive experience in the relevant role domain (e.g., a past Team Leader in a TL triad). He serves as a Sergeant-at-Arms, takes notes, bears witness to both co-mentors, and is a Stand for their success. Critically, the Triad Leader speaks as little as possible — he is most effective when the other two men are doing the work.
The two Co-mentors are men who are both currently serving in the same role or skill-domain (e.g., two current Team Leaders). They may have differing levels of experience with each other; what matters is that each commits to the mentorship of the other as his primary orientation, and does so through witnessing and asking opening questions.
The three men in the triad should be from three different Men's Teams whenever possible. The Witnessing provided by the triad structure benefits when the men do not already believe they know what's going on in each other's lives.
- Expect accountability from the start.
- Each man respects the commitment and time of the other two.
- The two co-mentors have 80% or more of the meeting time.
- Relationship is prioritised over coaching; coaching is prioritised over teaching (see the TCM triad).
- The Triad Leader takes notes and serves as Sergeant-at-Arms.
Teaching is about the knowledge you have,
Coaching is about what you are doing,
Mentorship is about how you are being.
This page was written in the "embarrassingly readable" markup language RHTF, and was last updated on 2026 May 20.
s.30