3.6 A mentoring mindset: preparing future principals to be effective  (Page 9/10)

“I have learned that the mentor is not responsible for me; the decisions I make are ultimately mine.”

“The mentor is not God and is not perfect; not omnipresent; not omnipotent; not omniscient. So, I must be honest, transparent, and willing to move on if the trust gets breached.”

There is a need to help future school leaders learn how to become empowered, effective protégés. One way to aid students in this process is to intentionally design educational leadership course activities that will prepare them to initiate mentoring relationships. There are several benefits to facilitating the development of the skills of protégéship with educational leadership students. First of all, the students gain an awareness of the different types of mentors, learning that there are often multiple mentors in their lives. Second, they come to understand the different responsibilities of a protégéand a mentor. A third benefit is that students become aware that not all mentor-protégérelationships are productive, and therefore the students learn how to bring closure to such relationships. Fourth, a productive mentoring relationship helps graduate students bridge theory from educational leadership courses to practice in the real world of school leadership. Finally, empowered protégés ideally take more and more responsibility for their own learning (Searby&Tripses, 2007). Intentional training in protégéship provides graduate students with greatly enhanced capacities to engage in what could be their most powerful learning experience.

Implications and Conclusions

Educational leadership preparation programs are in a position to make a difference in a critical aspect of the learning and development of future principals. All new principals will need mentoring, and all will need to know how to be effective protégés. We can enhance their preparation for this role. Although the identified knowledge, skills and dispositions of protégéship (Searby&Tripses, 2007) may be found between the lines of the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) standards for educational leadership, intentional teaching about mentoring and the responsibility that students have as protégés in the mentoring relationship may not occur to the extent that would be beneficial to students. In revising the content of this leadership preparation course, I became intentional about teaching future principals about the importance of preparing themselves to be effective protégés as they transitioned into school administration.

Students who were in the Mentoring for Educational Leadership course hopefully now have a mentoring mindset. They have learned how to prepare themselves to be effective protégés and have overcome reservations associated with acquiring and maintaining a mentor-protégérelationship. As protégés, they are no longer in a passive role, waiting for the mentor’s call. They are now positioned to be proactive in seeking a mentor. Armed with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions of effective protégéship, they are ready to capitalize on the benefits that can be obtained in a mentoring relationship. I offer my own experience in preparing educational leadership students for mentoring relationships as a possible model for other graduate courses, and would welcome dialogue with others involved in mentoring in higher education, as these concepts apply to other professional fields.