Understanding effective pillars of mentorship for student leader protégés

We examined the mentor-protégé relationship and the foundational pillars that make the relationship effective. Through a phenomenological design, we conducted interviews with student leaders to discuss their relationship with their self-identified most significant mentor. Using leader-member exchange and mentor relationship theory as a lens, we used the protégé’s perspective to find what was important for them as they were developed by a mentor. We found respect, trust, direct engagement and feedback, relationship maintenance, and shared values to be important components of effective mentoring. We used inductive analysis to develop a model that illustrates the qualities and phases that mentoring relationships go through, indicating which pillars should be present at each stage. We discuss implications of this for leader-member exchange theory and mentor relationship theory, as well as implications for practice in leadership education.