The Leadership Mentoring Institute has successfully assisted in setting up and conducting mentoring programs in over 1000 schools and in several Fortune 500 organizations including S.C. Johnson, KPIT Cummins and The ServiceMaster Corporation. In addition, with Delta Management Group we have also set up executive mentoring practices in several large health care institutions and university medical centers. We have observed that there are cultures, or organizational personalities, that are more amenable to effective mentoring. They engage in specific practices and attract and develop certain types of leaders we call mentor leaders. In this paper we will define mentor leaders and also describe the types of cultures that attract and sustain mentors and mentoring programs. The research cited will be mainly from the organizational development field, using recent works such as Great by Choice using Stanford's research on effective organizations including SW Airlines and Intel, as well as research on neuroplasticity from the social sciences. Participants will be able to learn traits of effective mentor leaders, characteristics of mentor friendly high performance cultures, and ways they can translate these findings into settings beyond business or healthcare. We will also discuss ways to encourage mentors and mentoring in your current setting and how to go about making changes into a more mentor friendly, high performance culture. The paper will use both quantitative and qualitative research results as well as anecdotal observations from our over 30 years of mentoring experience.

The presentation will focus on rescuing and restoring resilient learners in K-12 education with the primary focus being on K-5 early intervention. Among the areas discussed will be how mentoring assists students to overcome negative socio-economic factors and other distractions as long as the mentoring environment allows them to feel cared about, supported, and that their needs are being met. Research will be shared that demonstrates how effective structured mentoring and positive support can lead to positive interactions conducive to learning. The focus of this research is based on a mentoring strategy called Mentoring-Success and will demonstrate to participants how the concepts can be used in their own mentoring efforts.

Recent research in the field of neuroscience has yielded exciting and insightful research into the dramatic results healthy and positive relationships such as mentoring can produce. Research findings will be shared from recent works published by Harvard University, Mayo Clinic, and other leading experts and applications will be made to the field of mentoring. Special attention will be given to the area of neural plasticity; the ability of the brain to continue to rewire and grow under the right conditions. The findings will be applicable to protégés of all ages. The following paper explores these results and discusses five specific strategic actions mentor leaders can engage in to enhance the mentoring experience.

The following paper outlines the staggering challenge ahead of us to rescue and restore resilient learners. Mentoring-Success is a structured, customized, intentional mentoring program designed to help children defeat the cycle of failure. It focuses on early intervention in grades k-5. The article shares much of the research behind the program and a description of its unique approach to solving the challenge. 

This paper explores the process involved in effective executive mentoring. The author will explain the difference between the typical leader and the new emerging concept of the Level 5 mentor leader. The paper will also describe in detail the five factors essential to an effective mentor leader and provide some supporting research for the selection of these factors. Also discussed will be the use of Lepper’s 5C approach to mentoring and how this can be used for executive development by mentor leaders of new mentor leaders. The author will also provide some ideas regarding inexpensive but effective tools for assessment of leadership development needs and also resources that can be used for coaching.

 “The organization failed because it had too many effective leaders!”