Leadership Lab: Management Competencies Other Related Articles in Leadership Lab: Management Competencies Leadership and Mentoring of Young Employees Jim Horwath 421_Horwath_mentoring Leadership and Mentoring of Young Employees 1. Introduction The young employees of today are the future business leaders of tomorrow. As leaders, we have an obligation to help our future by training and mentoring tomorrow’s leaders today. How do we develop and keep the best young talent in an organization? The answer is using a mentoring program. By using an effective mentoring program, the leaders of today can help develop today’s talent into tomorrow’s leaders. Companies that leverage the leadership and experience of senior employees can develop and maintain the talent they have in-house. 2. Leadership Qualities Leadership is action and not position; a leader shows somebody how to do something, while a boss simply tells a subordinate to get something done. The leader has a vision and a plan and must inspire people around them to believe in and execute a plan. Although there are different types of leaders, all successful leaders share common characteristics that contribute towards their success. An effective leader knows his or her strengths and weaknesses, and is able to maximize all of them. Leaders have a certain confidence about them, and are able to stay calm under pressure. They are able to control their emotions so they can think clearly and make the best decisions that will achieve goals and produce winning situations. Leaders need to be flexible and know how and when to change to best meet each situation. The leader knows how to manage conflict and understand the political culture to achieve the best results. Leaders and the mentors share many of the same qualities; we will continue to discuss combining leadership and mentoring to help young employees. If mentoring of the employee meets the agreed upon goal, the mentor had to function as a leader during the process. It is hard to be a mentor without being a leader. 3. Leaders and Young Employees Leadership and mentoring of young employees is a way senior employees can help drive success of a corporation or an initiative. Young people graduate from academic institutions armed with academic knowledge and enthusiasm. However, many people quickly realize that they lack the skills required to navigate and succeed in a corporate environment. When employees of different generations need to work together on projects, there is the potential for an unhealthy rivalry and a contentious relationship. The young employee may feel the mature employee is stuck in their ways and unwilling to try an alternative, and the mature employee sees the youthful exuberance as flighty and undisciplined. When a mentor sponsors an employee, they form a professional bond that should leave a lasting impression on both parties. This paper will discuss the connection of leadership and mentoring, discussing how leaders can help dev ...

1. Leadership Lab: Management Competencies
Other Related Articles in Leadership Lab: Management
Competencies
Leadership and Mentoring of Young Employees
Jim Horwath
421_Horwath_mentoring
Leadership and Mentoring of Young Employees
1. Introduction
The young employees of today are the future business leaders of
tomorrow. As leaders, we have an obligation to help our future
by training and mentoring tomorrow’s leaders today. How do we
develop and keep the best young talent in an organization? The
answer is using a mentoring program. By using an effective
mentoring program, the leaders of today can help develop
today’s talent into tomorrow’s leaders. Companies that leverage
the leadership and experience of senior employees can develop
and maintain the talent they have in-house.
2. Leadership Qualities
Leadership is action and not position; a leader shows somebody
how to do something, while a boss simply tells a subordinate to
get something done. The leader has a vision and a plan and must
inspire people around them to believe in and execute a plan.
Although there are different types of leaders, all successful
leaders share common characteristics that contribute towards
their success. An effective leader knows his or her strengths and
weaknesses, and is able to maximize all of them. Leaders have a
certain confidence about them, and are able to stay calm under
pressure. They are able to control their emotions so they can
think clearly and make the best decisions that will achieve goals
and produce winning situations. Leaders need to be flexible and

2. know how and when to change to best meet each situation. The
leader knows how to manage conflict and understand the
political culture to achieve the best results. Leaders and the
mentors share many of the same qualities; we will continue to
discuss combining leadership and mentoring to help young
employees. If mentoring of the employee meets the agreed upon
goal, the mentor had to function as a leader during the process.
It is hard to be a mentor without being a leader.
3. Leaders and Young Employees
Leadership and mentoring of young employees is a way senior
employees can help drive success of a corporation or an
initiative. Young people graduate from academic institutions
armed with academic knowledge and enthusiasm. However,
many people quickly realize that they lack the skills required to
navigate and succeed in a corporate environment. When
employees of different generations need to work together on
projects, there is the potential for an unhealthy rivalry and a
contentious relationship. The young employee may feel the
mature employee is stuck in their ways and unwilling to try an
alternative, and the mature employee sees the youthful
exuberance as flighty and undisciplined. When a mentor
sponsors an employee, they form a professional bond that
should leave a lasting impression on both parties. This paper
will discuss the connection of leadership and mentoring,
discussing how leaders can help develop the young employee.
People often discuss the concept of leadership, but rarely is one
able to define what leadership is. When asked for examples of
leadership, often we receive names but not the qualities of
leadership. Helping employees recognize the difference between
leadership and management can yield great results for everyone
and create the utopia win-win situation. Leadership is action
and not position; this is a powerful concept that can help
employees grasp the importance of leadership in life, not only
in a professional setting. Leaders show people what to do, a
boss will tell somebody what to do. The concept that anyone
with the desire can become an effective leader is a great

3. mentoring topic.
According to Bernard Bass, leadership is a quality developed; it
is not something people are born with. According to Bass, there
are three ways a person becomes a leader. There is the Trait
Theory where personality traits lead people into leadership
roles. Only a few people possess the traits that make them
natural leaders. Second, there is the Great Event Theory; an
event happens that forces greatness and leadership from an
individual. There are dramatic events that have an effect on
people bringing out qualities that a person did not realize they
had. Think of things like community disasters where an unlikely
individual leads the masses. Finally, there is the
Transformational Leadership Theory that states people choose
to be leaders, and people develop leadership over time. Of the
three theories presented by Bass, the Transformation Leadership
Theory is the most common method used by individuals to
become leaders. (Northcutt 2009)
4. Roles and Responsibilities of a Mentor
In this discussion, mentoring will represent the experienced
employee offering professional advice to a younger employee,
while serving as a teacher, advocate and counselor. Functioning
as a mentor is different from being a coach. A coach is a person
who helps a person achieve a specific goal. The function of a
mentor is not to correct and remediate work behavior. The role
of a mentor is to offer professional advice and help the
employee to understand the corporate culture. The mentor and
protégé form a junior/senior relationship where the senior
assists the junior with advice on how to meet daily
responsibilities; and help the junior create a plan to achieve
short and long-range career goals. This is more like a karate
instructor/karate student relationship and less like a
coach/player relationship. Mentoring is a great way for senior
employees to help the future leaders of tomorrow, and provides
a way to give back to the organization.
The mentor should be the biggest supporter of their protégé.
Through the sponsorship of a mentor, the protégé should receive

4. increased visibility and exposure within the organization. The
sponsor can help socialize the good work accomplished by their
protu00e9gu00e9 through leveraging their established contacts
in the organization. The young employee often arrives with
nau00efve enthusiasm that lacks a degree from the school of
hard knocks. The mentor can serve an important role by sharing
experiences with the protégé. This allows young employees the
ability to learn from the mistakes of others. The protégé
receives all the benefits without making the same, possibly
career limiting, mistakes. The mentor can provide critical
insights to the organization and help the young employee read
and sense the events going on around them. This helps the
young employee recognize opportunities and avoid career
limiting mistakes. Succeeding in an established corporate
environment is not easy. Young employees with an ambition to
climb the corporate ladder and make the most of their
professional opportunities need to learn how to succeed. The
mentor is normally a seasoned veteran who can provide a
roadmap on how they and other successful employees climbed
the corporate ladder. The mentor and protégé should discuss
where the protégé would like to end up. This information can
help the mentor and protégé create a success plan based on the
experience of the mentor and their peers. Each organization has
a culture and life unique to itself; the mentor can offer advice
on how to succeed in the organization. The mentor can fuse
professional advice with organization experience when offering
advice to the young employee. The organizational knowledge of
the mentor will guide the advice and critique offered by the
mentor. (Borg)
The mentor can help the protu00e9gu00e9 identify and learn
new skills that will help the protégé succeed within the
organization. The protégé should discuss ideas and strategies
with the mentor looking for advice to see how this can affect
the goals of the protégé within the organization. The mentor can
help find new opportunities for the protégé and protect the
protégé from career limiting or ending opportunities. The

5. mentor will need to function as the confidant helping with
unwritten rules of the organization and is there to listen when
needed. (Borg)
5. Leadership and Mentoring Similarities
Leaders have a vision and the ability to get people around them
to buy into the vision and achieve a result. The mentor
functions like a leader by having the protégé believe and
achieve the goals the mentor and protégé agree upon. The
mentor’s vision is seeing the protégé reach their potential and
having the protégé believe in a plan to reach the goal.
Leadership and mentoring go well together Young employees
are valuable organizational resources. Organizations that
provide leadership and mentoring to young employees can
receive great dividends from time spent with them. This paper
discusses leadership and mentoring of young employees. To be
an effective mentor there must be leadership, and leadership
fosters mentoring. Employees may ask the question why they
should become a mentor to somebody, especially a younger
employee. There are times when the older employee may
perceive the younger person as a threat to one’s job and position
in the organization. As the business climate remains tough, this
is understandable because it is human nature to do our best to
survive. This is the perfect opportunity to demonstrate
leadership through mentoring.
6. Mentoring Benefits
There are many benefits to becoming a mentor. Serving in the
role of a mentor reinforces that the mentor is a SME (subject
matter expert), and demonstrates leadership qualities by sharing
this expertise. Organizations sometimes fail to realize the
obstacles the young employee faces on a daily basis, the mentor
can help with overcoming work-related obstacles. A mature
organization has a certain culture about it that the experienced
employee is comfortable with and knows how to navigate
through. Not only does the mentor have the opportunity to teach
a protégé, they have the ability to learn themselves. Being an
effective teacher requires knowledge about the areas the teacher

6. is teaching. Being a mentor provides the opportunity to enhance
soft skills such as coaching, counseling, listening, and
leadership. Mentoring and leadership go together, a mentor will
demonstrate leadership skills through the mentoring process.
(OPM Office of Human Resource Development)
Part of leadership is being able to resolve conflict in a way that
is most beneficial to all parties. When leaders function as
mentors, they are acknowledging the generational differences
between the two, and can help resolve differences that may
occur because of generational gaps. As the mentor passes on
knowledge, he/she can help shape the future of the organization
for the better. This is one case of one person making a big
difference. If the mentor is successful with helping the
employee, they can affect every person in the organization the
protégé meets. Expand the numbers and you can see how
powerful this can be.
7. Why Employees Should Seek a Mentor
Taking this discussion from another point of view, why would a
young employee want to have a mentor in the organization? The
potential protégé has made it into the organization, moving up
in the organization should not be too hard. This is an area where
the young employee must put pride aside and realize the path to
success will be much quicker and smoother using a mentor.
When a young employee becomes the protégé of a mentor, many
benefits will help the protégé assimilate easier into the
corporate culture. The young employee will have a quicker and
easier transition into the organizational workforce. The young
employee will see their organizational skills develop at a much
faster rate because they can use the experience of another
person and not make the same mistakes.
The mentor can help reinforce that the knowledge and tools
learned in school are correct and work in real life. Many
students need to take required courses as part of the curriculum,
yet often students question why they need to take certain
courses. The mentor can help the student leverage some of their
academic knowledge in a real-world setting. With a mentor, the

7. young employee receives exposure to areas of the organization
they normally may not experience, or may not experience until
they have more time in the organization. The young employee
may have ideas that may or may not apply to the organization.
The mentor can help vet ideas based on his or her experience
within the organization. In a leadership role, the mentor can
help socialize the good ideas and help promote their protégé.
The mentor can help protect the protégé from bad ideas and
assist in strengthening ideas that have potential. The mentor has
a chance to demonstrate leadership by working with the protégé
and helping to further the career of the younger employee. This
demonstration of leadership can help build trust and strengthen
the bond between the two. (OPM Office of Human Resource
Development)
8. Selection Process of Candidates
The selection of candidates is an important process. Although
everyone can benefit from mentoring, a formal mentoring
program should have a selection process that matches the right
mentor with the right protégé. Effective mentoring requires trust
and respect of both parties. Without mutual respect and trust,
the mentoring program will lose some of its effectiveness. It is
important to match mentors and protégé properly. If the mentor
and protégé is not a good match, the mentoring program will not
produce the desired results.
9. Candidate Qualities
Here are a few things to look for when selecting employees that
are potential protégés for a mentoring program. There is the
employee who is quiet and humble about their accomplishments,
and does not boast about what they accomplish. Colleagues that
are more assertive many times overshadow these organization
stalwarts. This does not mean the assertive person is more
capable, only that the quiet achiever needs mentoring to bring
out his or her best. These quiet, effective employees are great
candidates for a mentoring program. These employees usually
have the desire and tools to succeed; they only need a mentor to
cultivate their strengths and help them meet their potential.

8. Another candidate is the young employee who seem to be born a
leader. These employees have the respect of their peers, work
well with others and have that “it” quality about them. These
employees look to be future leaders; a mentoring program can
help accelerate that process and nourish their natural ability.
The matching of mentors to protégés does not have to be within
the same functional group or working structure. A good mentor
should be able to help a protégé regardless of the
responsibilities of the two. There are times when pairing
mentors and protégés from different disciplines can work really
well. For example pairing a manager with a young engineer can
help guide the engineer into management responsibilities.
Finally, there is the employee who asks for sponsorship from a
mentor. The employee, or potential protégé sees something in
the mentor they can relate to, or qualities in the mentor they
admire. (Borg)
Not all employees are candidates for mentoring. Although all
employees can benefit from mentoring, some have no desire for
a mentor and may become resentful if placed in a mentoring
program. There are employees who come to work to do their
job, and have no desire to get ahead. These employees may see
mentoring as nothing more than an added burden in an already
dissatisfying job. A mentoring program may actually have the
reverse effect and cause an average employee to become a
below average producer. This form of passive resistance can be
a poison in the organization. Adding this type of employee into
a mentoring program would be a waste of time and resources for
both parties.
10. Mentoring Program Responsibilities
In a successful mentoring program, both the mentor and the
protégé have responsibilities. The protégé must give as well as
receive. Employees selected as protégés for a mentoring
program have responsibilities similar to the mentors. The
employee must want to be in a mentoring program, otherwise
the results will be poor and the effort will be a failure. The
protégé must be willing to accept criticism and work on

9. changing behavior. The protégé should be willing and open to
learning new skills; this will benefit both the organization and
the individual creating a win-win situation. The protégé must
have a desire to advance within the organization and be willing
to provide greater contributions to the organization. For
maximum benefit, the protégé must own certain processes and
help drive the mentoring relationship forward. Having the
protégé own some of the processes will provide the protégé a
sense of commitment towards making the program work. This
process ownership will also start to develop leadership skills
and start to groom a future mentor. Just as the mentor provides
feedback to the protégé, the protégé should provide feedback
concerning the mentor so the mentor can make adjustments
where necessary.
A mentoring program cannot be successful if there is not
participation from both parties. There needs to be a clear
delineation of responsibility for both parties. If the mentor also
functions as the protu00e9gu00e9’s manager, both parties need
to know the difference between the manager and the mentor. A
successful mentoring partnership starts with written goals that
the team references on a regular basis so they can measure how
they are doing towards meeting their goals. These written goals
will help determine whether the partnership is a success and
will provide progress made towards the goal. There should be a
periodic review of goals with the intention of charting the
progress of the partnership. The goals agreed upon must be
realistic and attainable; setting a goal that is not achievable will
not help either partner. The mentor should function as a
colleague first, and an expert second. The mentor must possess
excellent listening skills; listening allows the mentor to
understand the goals and concerns of the protégé. The mentor
must be very calm and welcoming; the protégé should feel
relaxed and comfortable when dealing with the mentor. The
mentor must have a disposition that allows the protégé to relax
and feel comfortable. The mentor can introduce resources and
people to the protégé. It is the responsibility and duty of the

10. protégé to pursue leads and people introduced by the mentor. It
is not the responsibility of the mentor to police what the protégé
does with people and resources introduced to them. Mentoring
is a tool for achieving goals. The end goal is the reason for the
mentoring partnership; each party should not lose sight of why
they are partners. The mentor should have high expectations
from the protégé. The most effective mentoring relationships
strive to push the leadership abilities of the protégé and provide
an active learning environment for both parties. (Borg)
11. Conclusion
The mentoring process should start and develop the leadership
attributes in a protégé. Many organizations refer to management
as leadership and avoid the term management. The mentoring
partnership may be the first hands on experience with leadership
for the protégé. There are many similarities between leadership
and mentoring. If the mentor is effective, the protégé will be
eager to follow the guidance of the mentor. Having people
willingly follow a mentor and believing in the mentor is an
attribute of leadership. The mentor must provide a sense of trust
in the protégé, and will slowly build the confidence of the
protégé as he/she starts to move towards his/her goals. A leader
wants to show how great their team is, so the mentor looks to
socialize the good works of the protégé. A good leader takes
charge when the situation calls for it. The protégé must own
some of the mentoring processes, and this is a step towards
building leadership. Forcing the protégé to take responsibility
can start to plant the seeds of leadership in the protégé.
Being a mentor is a form of leadership. The mentoring
partnership allows a protégé to interact with a leader and start
building leadership skills. The mentor should slowly start to see
leadership traits starting to appear in the protégé, and the
protégé should see a change in the mentor. The leadership
provided by the mentor is a great way to help the future.
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What are the appropriate measure(s) to use in describing the
average, shape, and spread of the data according to the scale of
measurement for the data (nominal, ordinal, interval/ratio). For
example, the mean is an appropriate measure of central
tendency for interval/ratio data. There may be multiple or no
appropriate measures for a cell.