Peer Mentoring as a Form of Leadership Development

Abstract

Mentors provide a wide variety of professional and social benefits that include orienting their mentees to new environments. With formal mentoring programs, the mentee’s growth and success are often the measure of success. However, mentoring, like any other dyadic relationship, is an exchange of thoughts, feelings, and experiences between both parties. Mentors have as much of an opportunity, perhaps even more, to develop their skills in leadership, communication, and influence by investing their energy into their mentee’s success. Despite the potential transformational power of effective mentoring, empirical investigation into the benefits mentors receive from mentorship is lacking.