Leadership in Action: In Focus - Mentoring - Nurturing Relationships Provide Many Benefits

In Focus/Mentoring

Nurturing Relationships Provide Many Benefits

E. Wayne Hart

One of the key skills of effective leaders is the ability to nurture and develop their staffs. And with organizations facing an impending leadership vacuum as the retiring Baby Boom generation is replaced by the smaller Generation X, developing the next wave of leaders is more important than ever. One way to accomplish this is through mentoring—an intentional, developmental relationship in which a more experienced and more knowledgeable person nurtures the professional and personal life of a less experienced, less knowledgeable person.

Mentoring can be an informal process that a mentor and a mentee have agreed on, or it can be formalized as an organizational initiative, ...