Mentoring Future Leaders

Mentoring Future Leaders
Chip Bell’s View on Mentors and Mentoring
“The mentor is a teacher, a guide, a sage, and foremost a person
acting to the best of his or her ability in a whole and compassionate
way in plain view of the protégé. No greater helping or healing can
occur than induced by a model of compassion and authenticity.
Mentoring is about being real, being a catalyst, and sometimes being
a kind of prophet. It is therefore far more art than science. It is about
personal power, not expert or role power. The most powerful and
most difficult part of mentoring is being who you are.”
“The core of a mentoring relationship is more about a mutual search than
about wisdom passage.” (1998, p x)
Bell explains that mentoring “is about power-free facilitation of learning. It is
about teaching through consultation and affection rather than constriction
and assessment. It views learning as an expansive, unfolding process
rather than an evaluative, narrowing effort.” and “success comes through
creative adaptation and innovative breakthroughs rather than replicating
the tried (tired) and not true (not new).” (1998, p xi)
Wat sien jy as die belangrikste element van mentoring?
© Learning Link International
April 2005
Module 1 - Introduction to Mentoring Page ! 1