Mentoring is essential and necessary for both ordinary employees and leaders occupying the hierarchy’s upper levels, since many employees face and have to deal with new responsibilities. Augustine-Shaw (2015), in her article “Leadership and learning: Identifying an effective design for mentoring new building leaders,” explores the need and way of providing an effective mentoring program for principals to define a process for their creating. Consequently, although Augustine-Shaw’s article has some shortcomings, the scheme for creating mentoring programs is suitable for its use in a business environment.
The author of the article reveals the importance of mentoring for principals and describes the process of creating and the effectiveness of a mentoring program in Kansas. Although Augustine-Shaw (2015) does not highlight the research question, the introduction clarifies that the work’s central purpose is to determine the optimal design for principals’ mentoring. Augustine-Shaw says, “Decisions related to designing a mentoring and induction program to support the complex role and responsibilities of the new principal must be built on best practice and defined by need” (2015, p. 22.). The primary arguments for developing new design are that most principals lack the management and decision-making experience that could create a productive learning environment, and most organizations do not provide them assistance. The main research methods were interview to formulate principals’ needs, observation, and experiment to determine the main points of the mentoring program and their effectiveness.
This article has almost no elements for criticism, since, despite the non-standard form and structure of the study, the author consistently describes all the necessary components for research implementation. Augustine-Shaw concludes, “The invaluable support provided by onsite mentoring and networking builds leadership skills and knowledge for new principals and is catapulting leadership and learning to a new level…” (2015, p. 29). The only drawbacks are the limited sample size and the lack of an objective assessment, since feedback consists of subjective feedback from participants. However, this goal is determined by the author for future studies. Therefore, the method of designing a mentoring program presented in the study can also be applied in the business sphere for mentoring managers and first-time entrepreneurs.
Reference
Augustine-Shaw, D. (2015). Leadership and learning: Identifying an effective design for mentoring new Building leaders. Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin, 81(2), 21–30.