It is well recognized that each one of us operates in a cyclic manner implying that an executive confronts and needs to overcome "performance-fatigue" as well as an inflexion-point after hitting a high. Many persons fail to recognize the onset of "performance-menopause phase" and thereby fail to arrest the performance downslide, drifting farther away from where they could have headed and reached. The Mentor plays the role of a buffer, collaborator, crisis advisor, facilitator, influencer, sounding board, strategist, exhaust-vent and tactician- all rolled into on
A mentor helps the mentee in any of the two ways:
A. Anticipate the onset of performance downslide and collaborate to help the mentee overcome the       downslide.
B. Prepare the mentee to go further up the growth curve by addressing issues which could come in future      as handicaps .
A mentor tells what you fear to hear, shows what you fear to see so you could be what you have always known you could be and helps you to overcome the pitfalls of performance fatigue.
Without mentoring, sometimes the good performers start to feel that the only way they can survive is by performing even higher, while those who miss the target performance, begin to look for escape points. Either way,one begins to fear failures and build enormous pressure on himself and consequently on his team and work-environment. As a logical consequence, one starts failing to build good working relationships with team-members who may succeed him, if he fails. One may even begin killing good possibilities even while wanting to grow them.
The graph below depicts as to how an executive goes thru differing stages of managing himself in relation to company and/or business environment to reach the summit. But for each success story, there are many who falter at various stages and are unable to reach the summit or the target destination. A mentor helps in eliminating or compressing stage 1 to 4.



Everyone needs a mentor, whatever position he may have reached. It is the responsibility of the employers and the boards to bring up their employees well to grow businesses with sustainability and profits.
Its not that senior executives do not know the principles of sound management and good governance. It is just that the 'need for higher performance' makes them behave differently many a times. They may micro manage, may start wanting people to clone them, not recruit the best employees, become very emotional or reckless. An objective assessment of their “thought-process/view-point/working style” is always a good value-add. Executive mentoring unclutters many things and reduces stress tremendously.